The Escambia County (Ala.) Road Department may be adding two part-time employees per work area to help work crews keep up with grass cutting along county rights-of-way.
During an administrative workshop Tuesday afternoon, County Engineer Bill Bridges said the grass cutting is getting behind due to crews working on other projects. He said it forces him to pull workers from other jobs to cut grass.
Sheriff Heath Jackson told the commission he would help if he could, but he didn't know if he had any inmates who could drive a tractor or who he would recommend.
Bridges said he would likely need the employees for about 15 weeks at $13 per hour but noted it was not in the budget.
“It would definitely help us with all the other projects we have going on,” Bridges said.
The commission asked County Clerk-Administrator Tony Sanks to study the budget to see where the money could come from and report back at the next county commission.
New van
The commission also gave Sheriff Heath Jackson tentative approval to move ahead with the purchase of a new van to transport federal inmates from the Escambia County Detention Center to Mobile.
“I need a transport van and figure out how to pay for it,” Jackson said.
He said he currently has two vans that are broken down and the others are old and not reliable. He said the sheriff's office usually transports 10 to 15 federal inmates back and forth to federal court in Mobile.
“I'm not going to put my employees in junk any more,” Jackson said. “At some point we have to do something.”
He said part of the contract to house federal inmates, which pays the county $45 to $47 per day to house the inmates, is to transport them to federal court in Mobile.
“I don't want my guys stranded on the side of the interstate with 14 or 15 federal inmates,” Jackson said. “The federal contract brings in money and my job is to not to jeopardize it.”
Jackson said a ball park figure would be about $50,000 for a Ford Transit Van with a diesel engine already equipped with a cage and other safety features.
“By next week I'll have a solid number,” Jackson told the commission. “If we don't have the money, we could order it because it will take a while to get it modified to transport inmates.”
The commission told Jackson to go ahead and nail down a cost and report back.
