DeKalb Democratic Party Hosts Event for U.S. Senate Candidate Gloria Johnson

April 14, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Gloria Johnson of Knoxville was in Smithville Saturday for a campaign event hosted by the DeKalb County Democratic Party.

Johnson is among four candidates vying for the nomination of the Tennessee Democratic Party in the primary on August 1. The winner will likely face first term Republican incumbent U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Brentwood in the November General Election. The term is for six years. Blackburn has one opponent in the state GOP Primary in August.

After a potluck meal, Representative Johnson spoke to supporters and then had a meet and greet.

Johnson spoke with WJLE after the event.

“The campaign is going great. We are showing up everywhere. That’s one of the things this campaign is going to do. We are going to visit every county. We are so excited about the crowds we are bringing and the people that are fired up for this election. I just can’t thank the people enough for all their support,” said Representative Johnson.

Currently a Democratic member of the Tennessee House of Representative from District 90 based in Knoxville, Johnson explained how she became interested in politics.

“I was a schoolteacher and taught for 27 years. I taught special education. I really wasn’t into party politics or politics at all. I voted but really wasn’t involved or engaged. I got involved because of Barack Obama. He really spoke to me about so many things. I said I am a schoolteacher, but you (Obama campaign) can have all my weekends and my vacations, and I will work for your campaign,” said Representative Johnson. “I got trained up with a lot or organizers and after that (Presidential) election was over I wanted to get involved locally because what affects you is what is happening locally. I started getting involved in issues like healthcare and public education. I already was involved because of public education. I really wanted to work for Medicaid expansion because my sister was very ill and lost her insurance after a time because everything was so expensive. She finally got her insurance back because of the pre-existing conditions problem going away thanks to the ACA (Affordable Care Act). The more you find out the more you want to work for these things that are so good for Tennessee families. Making sure every family has access to health care. Making sure that everybody, no matter your zip code, has a great public school, and make sure that everybody is earning a living wage so they can feed the family and keep the lights on, buy the medicine they need, and maybe take a vacation and retire in dignity. That’s the American dream. Everyone should be able to access that who works a 40-hour week. These are policy choices made at the state, local, and federal level. We are sent to work for the people of Tennessee and that’s what I intend to do,” said State Representative Johnson.

Johnson gained national attention a year ago when she and two other state representatives, Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville faced expulsion votes from the Tennessee General Assembly after taking to the floor of the State House unrecognized to protest gun violence. Johnson was the only one of the three legislators not to be expelled. Both Pearson and Jones later reclaimed their seats in a special election.

April 12, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

Another new school resource officer position is being created for the DeKalb County School District to be filled by a female officer starting with the 2024-25 school year bringing the total number of SROs locally to six. The other current five SROs, funded by the state, are all men assigned one each to Smithville Elementary, Northside Elementary, DeKalb West, DeKalb Middle, and DeKalb County High School.

During Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting, the Board of Education voted 6-1 to fund in the 2024-25 budget at the request of Sheriff Patrick Ray, a new SRO to serve primarily as a rover between DeKalb County High School and DeKalb Middle School. Board member Danny Parkerson was the lone vote against the move. Although funded by the school district, the new school resource officer, like the other five, will be employed directly by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department and the funds for the positions directed into the sheriff’s budget.

Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said he supports the addition of a new SRO position.

“Anytime you talk about kids you want safety first and our goal is to provide every resource that we can to make them feel safe when they come to school. Having another SRO from the sheriff’s department in the school just reinforces that commitment. We also want to put as many positive role models in the schools as we can. When those kids see a friendly face (SRO) they can identify with at school and outside of school that’s just a win-win for them and our community,” said Director Cripps.

“I want to thank Director of Schools Cripps and the school board for giving us this position,” said Sheriff Ray.

The sheriff first raised the idea of expanding the SRO program last year and to have the additional officer cover for another SRO who has to be absent due to sickness or some other reason.

“The way we have been handling that is to use the middle school SRO to substitute for an SRO at one of the other schools and to have the high school SRO cover both the high school and middle school but that makes it hard on the high school SRO because DCHS is our busiest place in the school system as far as what SROs do,” said Sheriff Ray at the time.

Although it may have been necessary, staff members at DeKalb Middle School were not particularly happy that their SRO had to be the one to cover for other schools.

During the school board’s workshop Thursday night, prior to the regular monthly meeting, a DMS educator expressed her concerns.

“This school year up to this point we have had our SRO at a different school for twenty-four and a half days. There have been a few times when we had to call the high school SRO and he was in the middle of a situation there so that put us waiting until he could get over here. Fortunately, I am very thankful it was never something life threatening. I know sometimes there has to be a substitute, but it hurts us a lot when we have to lose our SRO because our students know and trust him. Its nice to have that person here,” she said.

“I feel like when a car (SRO vehicle) isn’t present out front, we are sitting ducks,” said another DMS teacher. “They know there is nobody here. I know we had to call him (high school SRO) one time and the radio didn’t work so we had to physically call his cell phone to get him to come because the radio frequency didn’t work at that particular time. Our SRO is needed here for the safety of our staff as much as our students. And with having no walls in the building (between classes) that creates another safety concern,” she said.

Sheriff Ray has not yet announced the name of the new SRO, pending her completing SRO training, although she has been working for some time as a deputy and her base pay is currently $50,601 plus benefits according to her salary tier level with the sheriff’s department.

“We plan to put this female deputy as an SRO at the DeKalb Middle School/DCHS complex. She will be a rover between those schools unless an SRO is absent on a given day at one of the other schools, then she would substitute for that SRO there,” said Sheriff Ray.

Because SRO’s have to work with female students as well as males, Sheriff Ray said having a female SRO in the schools only makes since.

“Female students might feel more comfortable talking to or confiding in a female SRO to assist them in certain situations,” he said.

Now that the decision has been made to create the new SRO position, Sheriff Ray said training has been scheduled for her this summer.

“A regular deputy can’t just go to school and become a school resource officer. To be an SRO, proper training of 40 hours is required with protocols to follow regarding juveniles. That and much more is part of the schooling they must have. We had already prearranged a training at the end of June hoping the school board would take this action and now that they have, we will go ahead and get that underway,” said Sheriff Ray.

Last year the county received state money for each of the five schools to fund the School Resource Officer (SRO) positions. Each school was granted $75,000 for a total allocation from the state of $375,000, which is recurring each year, to be administered by the sheriff’s department in operating the SRO program. The state funds pay the salaries of SRO officers and are used for SRO related needs.

Previously, the sheriff’s department had SROs working at each of the five schools in DeKalb County funded locally, three of them by the county and two by the school district.

The SRO staff currently consists of Roger Whitehead at Smithville Elementary, Joe Pack at Northside Elementary, Joseph Carroll at DeKalb Middle School, Sergeant Chris McMillen at DCHS, and Billy Tiner at DeKalb West School.

April 11, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County budget committee met Tuesday evening at the courthouse to begin making plans for the 2024-25 operating budget.

Half of the 14-member county commission makes up the budget committee including 1st district commissioner Tom Chandler, 2nd district commissioner Sabrina Farler, 3rd district commissioner Susannah Cripps, 4th district commissioner Tony (Cully) Culwell,, 5th district commissioner Glynn Merriman, 6th district commissioner Jeff Barnes who serves as chairman of the budget committee, and 7th district commissioner Mathias Anderson. Chandler was absent.

The committee heard budget requests from a few county public officials and department heads at the meeting including the sheriff, general sessions/juvenile court judge, circuit court clerk, administrator of elections, as well as from directors of two non-profit groups, the chamber of commerce and rescue squad. County Mayor Matt Adcock reviewed with the budget committee the estimated revenues and expenditures of the county general fund budget for the new year which is subject to change if cuts are made or new spending is added based on funding requests from the various departments

Salaries, which have gone up in recent years and are now significantly impacting the budget, are going up again. Pay increases have been plugged into the proposed new spending plan for county public officials as mandated by the state as well as for employees in the county general government based on what they are due to earn under their tiered salary scales.

Sheriff Patrick Ray, during his budget presentation, urged the committee to not tamper with the existing wage scale for employees.

“I made myself a promise when I got elected to always take care of my employees and I would appreciate your consideration for the pay raises (for employees). I know it’s a tight year but I think we owe it to our employees of each office to get raises. That’s how we retain people here, especially in my office. Its hard to find anybody to work anyway and then to make them work in corrections is about impossible. A lot of places are giving sign-on bonuses and incentives. I talked to the county emergency services committee the other night. There are grants out there for that (sign-on bonuses) but how am I going to explain to a high tiered deputy that I am giving somebody $10,000 to stay and them make more than my higher tiered deputies. That’s not really a good way to retain somebody. I ask that you consider all county employees, not just mine because I’m sure they have problems just like me in finding somebody to come to work that is trustworthy and doesn’t have an arrest record. Its hard to find people like that,” said Sheriff Ray.

As for his budget, Sheriff Ray said one of the biggest changes is an increase of $33,000 to the county from the company that provides inmate health care, Fast Access Corrections Health Care of Chattanooga.

“Our health care costs have gone up about $33,000 from the current contracted amount of $400,900. We met with them about two months ago and learned that everyone, and it doesn’t matter what health care company we use, will have a higher number (cost) this year versus last year because their malpractice insurance has gone sky high,” said Sheriff Ray. “About all of them are requiring the county to be responsible for the medicine that the inmates receive. For years they (inmate healthcare provider) have always furnished medication in their bid other than anything for HIV, cancer, and other things they don’t pay for. The reason their malpractice insurance costs went up is because some lawyer got with all the jails that had contracted medical health services and had noticed that in their contracts, the health care companies had supplied the medicines, so they went back and sued those companies saying you are saving money by not giving needed medication to inmates therefore they are suffering, hurting, or dying. That is the reason all of them have opted out of that (providing medication) this year because their malpractice insurance went so high,” said Sheriff Ray.

The medications will continue to be provided by IHS Pharmacy, the company with whom Fast Access does business, but the county will now have to bear those costs.

Projections on paper currently show that the county might be in the red by as much as $835, 576 at year’s end (June 30, 2025) but County Mayor Adcock said that’s only if everything is spent as budgeted and that is not likely.

“Our preliminary total expenditures budgeted for now are $13,437,467 and that is $835,576 more than revenues. If you take what we have coming in as revenues and we collect every penny that we budget to bring in and then spend every dollar and every penny we budget to spend, we would be going in the hole by $835, 576. Obviously, we have never done that. All of our department heads are very conservative and good about turning money back in at the end of the year. Not everybody is going to spend everything budgeted but these numbers give you an idea of what we are looking at. It shows that the fund balance for July 1, 2024 would be $6,486,486 but by June 30, 2025 the fund balance would drop to $5,650,910 if we overspend by $835,576,” said County Mayor Adcock.