County discusses juvenile office position

The meeting came about as the county is dealing with the absence of juvenile officer Pat Malone. Malone accrued a large amount of vacation time over the last two years which had not been used. She now is in the process of using her vacation time and many in the county do not expect her to return to work. She currently is owed approximately $12,000 in comp time.

To help the county, Chip Barnes, a director of juvenile services with the circuit judges' offices, suggested the state office could pay the salary of a new employee through what he called "discretionary funds."

According to Barnes, this money would be used until the county has compensated Malone in full. This would assist the county, which does not have a budget currently in place to absorb the payment of an additional employee while covering the cost of Malone's comp time.

The Court was interested in Barnes' proposal and asked him to gather more information on what kinds of assistance is possible. Barnes said he will be in contact with the Court once he finds out more about what can be done at the state level.

During the discussion, there was discussion about why a small area like Clay County has three employees in its juvenile department when a large county, like Greene County, only has two employees. Barnes said all counties are required to have at least two employees -- an intake officer and a probation officer. He also said he had made plans to recommend the hiring of an additional intake officer to the Greene County Quorum Court. He likened this proposal to that which he made to the Clay County Quorum Court by stating the intake officers are required to handle large amounts of paperwork. By having two intake officers staffed with a probation officer, the juvenile office, according to Barnes, then would be able to better handle the case workload and limit the amount of delays involved with handling juvenile cases.

"I cannot believe that we have a bigger caseload than Greene County," Justice James Jeffress said.

When asked about leaving Clay County's juvenile office with only two members, as it is with Malone's absence, Barnes replied that doing so would cause things to "spiral out of control." He added that not filling Malone's position would hurt the children the office is assigned to help.

According to Barnes, after restructuring the county budget for the juvenile office, there would be an annual increase of $84 in salaries.

"If you can help pay off the comp time and it will only increase the budget by $84, then that sounds reasonable to me," Justice David Cagle said.

The Court agreed to continue the discussion after future contact from Barnes.

Humane Society

Several supporters were present to seek the Court's help in establishing a Humane Society program in Clay County. Rebecca Ascolese served as the spokesperson for the group.

"I'm not here to ask you guys for money," Ascolese said. "We qualify for a number of grants. We need a place to put these animals that are on the street. We need somewhere to keep them until we can find them good homes."

The Court was unsure of any suitable property with an existing building that currently is not being used. They did, however, offer the use of the county's gravel pits, located in the rural area west of Piggott. Ascolese said grants are available to help with the construction of a building if the county will allow use of the land.

Though originally hoping for a location in town, Ascolese said she is interested in viewing the proposed property.

"If we've got something to start with, then we can go about getting the word out," she said.

The group plans to visit the site and continue discussions with the Court.

Many share Ascolese's desire to create an animal shelter.

"I put down close to 200 dogs per year that are picked up off the streets," Piggott veterinarian Phil Daffron said. "Frankly, I'm sick of doing it. Something needs to be done to fix this problem."

Act 799 Fund Disbursement

Representatives from the Piggott, Corning and Rector schools were in attendance at the meeting to inquire about receiving Act 799 Funds from the county. Act 799 provides money acquired by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission through the payment of fines and fees. This money then is turned over to the county to be used for approved educational purposes. The Court said the county had approximately $17,000 in the fund and agreed to disperse it equally among the three shooting programs.

Later, during the public input portion of the meeting, Ryan Rogers (acting as a citizen of the county and not as a reporter) commented about the use of funds. He raised questions about future dispersals.

"Are there not some sort of guidelines you could put into place?" he asked. "It just seems to me there are other programs which could use that money as well. It just seems a little unfair to me that the entire fund went to one project. The shooting teams took the bulk of the money last year, except for the Rector team. I think there are programs that are more closely tied with education which could have used part of those funds."

Justice Cagle replied the shooting programs were the first to ask for funding this year. He said the decision had been made to allocate Act 799 funds on a "first come, first served" basis.

Justice Mark Watson agreed he would like to see some sort of an application process put in place.

"If some other group came to us looking for these funds next month, there wouldn't be any," Watson said. "I think that's something we should consider in the future."

Justice Cagle suggested any approved program could apply for the funds at any time. If the money is not available at the time the applications are received, the program representatives would be contacted when the funds had accrued. No changes to the disbursement procedure were made during the meeting.

Sheriff's Department

Sheriff Ronnie Cole advised the Quorum Court that he is considering at least one new deputy next month and possibly as many as three. Cole said several deputies have left the department over the last year to take other positions.

"At the end of this month, I'll only have two deputies with more than six months of experience," Cole said. "I'm just trying to get some coverage for the county. I've got to have more bodies out there."

"I don't see any problem with doing that at all," Cagle told the sheriff.

Cole also said housing prisoners from other counties has generated $185,000 so far for the county. These funds have been turned over to the County General budget for use in many of the county's departments.

Hancock Memorial

Clay County will create a special memorial for former 911 coordinator Jenny Hancock. Hancock was instrumental in establishing the county's 911 program. She is often attributed with the placement of identification markers and signs along the many rural county roads.

To honor her memory, the Court has decided to rename the county road she lived on in Knobel as "Jenny Hancock Road." The Court will prepare a special proclamation and present it to her family to honor her dedication to saving lives.

"She did a lot of work for this county," Judge Gary Howell said. "There's no telling just how many lives were saved because of all she did for Clay County."

No date was given for when the proclamation would go into effect.

In other business, the Court:

* Adopted Ordinance 2008-06 to clean up the 2007 budgets.

* Adopted Ordinance 2008-07 to amend the 2008 budgets.