After butting heads for several weeks, Rockdale County Board of Commissioners and Rockdale County Sheriff Jeff Wigington reportedly came to an agreement earlier this week over the federal COPS grant application. However, the Sheriff’s Office budget became a hot topic again when it was brought up off the agenda at the Rockdale Coalition of Homeowners and Civic Associations meeting Thursday night, in the absence of representatives from the Sheriff’s Office.

The Sheriff's Office applied on Wednesday for four deputy positions instead of the maximum seven positions under the COPS grant, which pays for salaries and benefits for the first three years while the county pays for the fourth year.The matter was reportedly discussed on Tuesday when the Sheriff was called to the executive session after the BOC meeting.

The cost of one year of salary and benefits for a deputy is about $42,200. The grant would provide about $506,000 for four positions over three years. The county would pay about $168,800 for the fourth year.

As part of the agreement, the cost of the equipment will come out of the RCSO budget. "We feel like we'll be able to equip them with equipment we already have," said Wigington.

In a released statement, Rockdale County CEO Richard Oden said "The Commissioners and I are doing our best to deliver options that will have the least amount of financial impact on the county. Under the terms of this agreement, the Sheriff will absorb the costs that my colleagues and I agree, would otherwise not be sustainable in 2012.”

Oden brought up the budget and funding of the RCSO at Thursday night's quarterly meeting of the Rockdale Coalition of Homeonwers and Civic Associations. The topic was not on the agenda and no representatives from the RCSO were present at the meeting.

Towards the end of the meeting, after hearing from department heads for Rockdale Water Resources, Transportation, Board of Assessors, and a representative from the state’s emergency health agency, Oden reviewed figures reported in the 2010 Sheriff’s Office report. He pointed out the level of funding for the RCSO had increased and the crime levels had decreased, while other county departments had decreased their funding to 2008 levels.

“This has been the strongest level of commitment (to the Sheriff's Office) in the history of Rockdale County,” said Oden. “Our justification for further conversation was that we looked at the funding provisions in the grant that says that we will potentially lose points and may not get that grant… .” He said the COPS grant application included provisions that the funding was for positions that were unfunded or would have been laid off.

Former sheriff’s candidate Donald Ferguson, who previously announced he would run again in 2012 and was reportedly wearing a campaign button, said at the meeting “I encourage the Board of Commissioners to have an audit done on the sheriff’s office using a company outside of the county to investigate not only the COPS program, which I perceive is a division. It’s supposed to be a program in the community policing concept...”

Audience members protested the comments. Gerald Barger, president of the Ga. Highway 20 Coalition, said "Mr Chairman, this is out of order. You’ve got a man who’s on a campaign against our sheriff standing here making a speech to get recognized."

"If you’re not going to have our sheriff here, this should not be discussed."

Brian Jenkins, who previously announced he was running for the CEO seat in 2012, said “What just transpired here was our sheriff being hoodwinked. Perhaps if he had known, he would have been here, he would have sat on that wall like (the other department heads).”

Elaine Nash, a member of the previous and current SPLOST oversight committee, pointed out the jail expansion increased the RCSO’s manpower needs and cost significantly by about 60 positions.

Ed Conway of the Lakeview Action Committee said the original intent of the Coalition was to facilitate exchange of information between the county and Homeowners Associations and civic groups.

"There is going to be politicing," he said. "But we need to keep this under control."

Wigington said he heard about the meeting but had not had a chance to review recordings and declined to comment.