KUSA — A sheriff on the Eastern Plains said he doesn't have enough staff to safely run his jail.
But that same sheriff, Yuma County Sheriff Chad Day, also said he doesn't plan to hire any more deputies. He is leaving office in a few months, and said he will leave the task of hiring new deputies to his replacement.
Day on Wednesday announced he is scaling back jail operations significantly in Yuma County due to a manpower shortage.
Most inmates will be sent to neighboring Washington County.
In his 26-person staff, Day said he has 13 positions approved to run the jail and one position that assists. He said five or six people assigned to the jail have already left.
“In anticipation of the coming change of administration in 2019, many of the then-current Sheriff’s Office staff have pursued and taken advantage of other opportunities, with more indicating their intention to do the same,” the post reads.
Todd Combs, a retired Colorado State Patrol trooper, beat Day in the Republican primary election. Without a Democratic challenger, Combs will be sworn in as Yuma County Sheriff in January.
For the duration of his term, Sheriff Day said he cannot safely maintain normal operations at the jail with the current staff. His solution is to contract most inmates to Washington County.
Asked why he won’t simply hire more staff members, Day said it wouldn’t be fair to the new sheriff.
“It’s just well understood that any major decision is avoided by an outgoing sheriff so that those things can be deferred to a new administration, to an incoming sheriff,” he told 9NEWS Wednesday. “And certainly in an administration of this size, hiring decisions are a major decision.”
Anyone hired immediately, he added, would have barely finished training before the transition anyway.
“We’re going to do our best with what we have, and [Combs] will be able to make those hiring decisions on his own,” Day said.
In his online post, the sheriff wrote: “Unfortunately, this problem is a natural consequence of the type of campaign season we experienced here.” Day said the campaign was “less than comfortable for everyone,” but did not elaborate beyond that.
“I know it was a very hotly-contested race. There was a lot of emotions here,” said Todd Combs, the incoming sheriff. He also did not wish to elaborate.
However, Combs said he disagrees with the outgoing sheriff’s choice not to hire anyone until the next administration begins.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re at in your term, if you just got elected or if you’re two weeks from leaving, you still have a responsibility to your citizens of your county to provide good law enforcement and a safe jail,” Combs said. “If you decide to sit on the sidelines and allow [staffing] to go down, then you’re starting to see what you’re seeing now, which is a failure to hire people to keep running the jail correctly.”
Combs said he would rather take office with a full staff, even if he didn’t hire them, than have several vacancies and be contracting inmates to another jail. And until he is sworn in, Combs said he can’t do much about the situation.
“Since I’m not an elected official,” he said, adding that he plans to speak at an upcoming county meeting. “I’m a citizen like everyone else and I can voice my concerns.”
For now, the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office will post updated information for people wishing to visit inmates on the agency's website.
