County talks adding jail administrator

Taylor County’s jail got a clean bill of health in a recent jail inspection conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

At the February 13 law enforcement committee meeting, Sheriff Corey Dassow told members that the inspectors came back with praise for the overall jail and housing and noted the inmate stress levels were quite low.

Dassow said the jail inspectors go so far as to interview inmates and the report noted the positive comments made by the inmates regarding conditions and treatment by staff.

Despite the excellent inspection results, Dassow said one area that was noted for future improvement is for the county to consider a single position to lead the jail instead of two jail sergeants. “That is one of their strong recommendations,” Dassow said.

The jail administrator would be in charge of the jail with the sergeants working as the supervisors for alternating shifts. Dassow said he could see doing away with the jail corporal position and switching to this type of situation. He said that he would bring forward a proposal for it in the March or April law enforcement meeting and was bringing it up now as something for the committee to be aware is coming.

In other business, committee members:

• Were reintroduced to Nick Schuld who was recently promoted to fill the detective position with the sheriff’s department. He has been with the department for almost 20 year with the last 5.5 of them as a sergeant. Schuld noted that some of the new deputies are younger than his oldest child. “I wanted a new role and be able to serve in a different way,” he said.

• Approved a resolution recognizing retired sheriff Larry Woebbeking for his 35 years in law enforcement in Taylor County.

• Discussed having emergency management director Dan Gellert go back to the county finance committee to request again to spend money for the purchase of new portable radios to be used during events and at larger emergency scenes. These are lower-level radios that are a step up from civilian walkie talkies in that they will also have a access to law enforcement channels when needed. The finance committee had delayed approval of the replacement pending a decision on how the county was going to move forward with needed upgrades to its radio system and either continuing with the state’s WISCOM system or going on its own system. This could impact the type of equipment purchased. This is a budgeted expense in the emergency government office.

• Received an update on plans to install a medication drop box for the county. The plan would be to utilize opioid settlement funds for the secure box where people can dispose of unneeded medications. The medications would be stored by the sheriff’s department and transported twice a year to the Wisconsin State Patrol office in Wausau where they would be destroyed. The plan is to have the drop box located between the doors in the dispatch area of the courthouse to be accessible at all time. The program would likely be administered by the health department, with law enforcement invoicing its time spent in storing and transporting the prescription medications. The law requires law enforcement to transport the collected medications.