At the Lafayette County Law Enforcement Committee meeting held Monday, Feb. 22 Gerald Heimann called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.
    In the Sheriff’s update: Sheriff Reg Gill updated the committee on:
    •Radio Tower – the template Tri-State Tower made to make corrections to the tower was off, didn’t match. The took angle iron and bolted it together, made sure everything was where it is supposed to be, loaded it up on the truck and took it back down to the tower company. Currently the engineers are finishing their design, then the piece will be fabricated. Hopefully in the next few days there will some time frames, so we will know where we’re at. They don’t seem to be too worried about getting the crane here.
    •Spillman RMS Project – the initial meeting is scheduled for Friday, March 11. Spillman Technologies is a records management system that will allow the Lafayette Sheriff’s office a records management capability and to share information with neighboring agencies. The program was approved at the November 2015 county board meeting for $265,000, plus an annual maintenance agreement fee of $19,235 for the second and third year.
    •Breachpoint Training – dealing with stress management in law enforcement. There will be a training session open to all law enforcement in Lafayette County and their families, the end of May, 2016
    •Tasers – right now the department has six tasers, plus one in the court area. It would be a better situation if each officer had a taser, instead of rotating between officers. The department is looking at buying four tasers with the approximate cost of $5,600. The department will look into funding and bring this to the next meeting.
    •Dept. of Justice Grant/Drug Enforcement – Assembly Bill 771 proposed by Representative Todd Novak and Representative Travis Tranel and co-sponsored by Senator Marklein for $20,000 in 2016 and $50,000 in 2017 for Lafayette County Sheriff’s Dept., it has passed the assembly and will now go to the Senate in the March session. This money would be used for drug enforcement in Lafayette County. Right now the department doesn’t have an officer in either SLANT or Grant-Richland Drug Task Force, because of financial issues. This money, if approved by the state, could be used for training and possibly to have an officer join one of the task force’s in 2017.
    Gill stated, “The real issue for us, if passed, would be the best way to use it. The grant is not enough to fund a full position.” He wondered if there would be money available from Lafayette County to complete the funding. Jack Sauer said, “I don’t know where we would come up with the other dollars.” Right now the Sheriff’s Dept. is under budget and the committee was wondering if there was a way to use that deficit to spend on future financial endeavors. Gill will discuss the matter with the Lafayette County Finance Office.
    •Miscellaneous – Replaced the garage door opener in the Sheriff bay; will be replacing the switches on two control boxes that open the jail cells; ordered 100 less lethal bean bags.