Sheriff proud of meeting challenges

During his 3 1/2 years as Flathead County sheriff, Mike Meehan said, his administration always has tried to be a responsible steward of taxpayer money.

“It’s been an honor to serve. I enjoy the job, I enjoy working with people, my oath is very sacred to me, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and also the state of Montana, and even when there’s tough decisions that benefit the taxpayers and maybe not the deputies, I’m going to do it,” he said.

“I’m committed to guarding them and their property and their tax dollars.”

The incumbent sheriff will face longtime former Undersheriff Chuck Curry and Sheriff’s Sgt. Lance Norman in the June 8 Republican primary. Since there are no other candidates, the primary winner goes into the November general election unopposed.

Early voting started Monday for the primary election.

Meehan said that in tough economic times, balancing a government budget is challenging, but he has been and will continue to be up to the task.

“I love a good challenge,” Meehan said in a recent interview. “I feel we have done this and will continue to do this without compromising the safety of our citizens and their property.” 

That includes rearranging schedules for deputies and the animal wardens, hiring a second jail nurse, and using federal grant money to fund programs.

Several years ago, Meehan said he met with the deputies and rearranged their patrol schedule, building in six 10-hour mandatory training days.

“There is certain training that you have to re-certify every year,” he said. “A lot of this in-house service training we can do within these six 10-hour mandatory days,” which cut down the training budget as well as overtime costs.

Prior to the Sheriff’s Office taking authority over the animal wardens 2 1/2 years ago, they had been working all-day shifts, receiving pager and call-out pay, he said.

But Meehan changed that.

“Essentially what I did was put them on the same schedule as the deputies,” he said, expanding their coverage and adding mandatory training days.

“I rearranged their schedule so that now we have 17 hours of coverage seven days a week, and it’s virtually eliminated the overtime costs and the pager pay and call-out pay,” he said. “It’s just a matter of looking at the schedule.”

Other attempts to cut costs include hiring a second jail nurse, which has substantially reduced the medical budget.

“The ER runs were just killing us, killing our medical budget because my detention officers erred on the side of caution when someone was getting sick or faking sick or whatever,” he said. “Now, with this second nurse, it has cut down the ER visits so much to where this nurse has actually paid for himself.”

Meehan’s administration also started the Children’s Advocacy Center, which in 2009 handled 115 cases of criminal activity against chid victims who worked with a child forensic interviewer. The program was federally funded.

Although the grant ran out after the first year, Meehan said he was able to get the three other three law enforcement agencies in the county to chip in to pay for the interviewer to keep the successful program alive.

Another federally funded child safety program Meehan’s administration has been involved with is Internet Crimes Against Children, which works to catch online predators.

He said the administration is also in the process of starting a Child Abduction Response Team.

Meehan said his administration also established a major crime scene unit made up of specially trained detectives and deputies to more effectively and efficiently solve major crimes and process crime scenes.

Federal funding also has helped to provide the deputies with updated equipment, which Meehan said has helped them to “really come a long ways in communications as far as serving the public.”

And as far as the public is concerned, Meehan said he wants to set a few things straight.

“Contrary to what my two opponents are saying about the School Resource Officer, I’ve had a part-time volunteer reserve deputy in the Evergreen School for the past two and a half years,” he said. “He’s not there eight hours a day every day, but he’s done a tremendous amount of work down there. I’ve sent him to SRO school. He’s strictly volunteer, he doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime, and I do support having a School Resource Officer.”

Meehan also defended the size of his administrative staff.

“They’re not just sitting around. If we’re short-shifted, they’re out on the road,” he said. With their additional duties, such as SWAT and reserve training, “they stay busy all the time.” He also said he “believes in personal growth and in promoting those people, because they are the future leaders in this office.”

Meehan also addressed some of the tough decisions he said he’s had to make.

Although he said his critics would like to say he got rid of the Search and Rescue coordinator position, Meehan explained that he divided the position’s duties among administrators, including himself.

“I am, under statute, responsible for Search and Rescue within the County,” he said, adding, “I just could not justify a $45,000-per-year deputy for the amount of search-and-rescue calls that were coming in full time. I felt that he was needed more on the street.”

Meehan said he also implemented a work-release program in the jail, which was running at maximum capacity on a daily basis when he took office, as well as put warrants online, which he said saves deputies’ time and taxpayers money.

“The Sheriff’s Office is very fluid,” he said, “you’re changing with times, economic times, Supreme Court decisions... you’re always trying to make things better.”

Reporter Melissa Weaver may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at mweaver@dailyinterlake.com