Wood County Sheriff’s Department’s Chief Deputy Robert Sims, Wood County Sheriff Steve Stephens and Chief Tax Deputy Denise Schuck discuss the budget. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

PARKERSBURG — The Wood County Commission as begun the budgeting process for 2020-2021 as officials started telling the commission what they need and what they would like.

Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure, Wood County Clerk Mark Rhodes and Wood County Sheriff Steve Stephens appeared before the commission on Monday to submit their budget proposals.

A need for new people and to retain their existing employees topped many of the requests.

Lefebure is requesting a 5 percent increase in pay for their office’s administrative assistants, secretaries and their nine attorneys. He said he would eventually like to add another assistant prosecutor to his office.

”It has been a number of years since they have been able to receive an increase,” he said of the administrative assistants and secretaries. ”We have been able to adjust salaries when people leave, but that line item has not seen an increase in years.”

Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure appeared before the Wood County Commission on Monday to discuss his budget requests for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

Lefebure has lost three assistant prosecutors over the last year for higher paying jobs.

He then has to find a new prosecutor and train the person.

”Hopefully, with a bump in the salaries that will be able to keep the prosecutors we have,” Lefebure said. ”The same thing with our administrative assistants.”

The administrative assistants who do work involving legal matters have a certain skill set vital for their office, he said.

”They should be compensated for that,” Lefebure said.

He estimates $12,500 would cover the needed raises for the administrative assistants and almost $27,000 for the attorneys.

”We recognize that we are not sitting on a pot of money here,” Lefebure said. ”It is important to me to take care of the people in my office first. I need to make sure I take care of them because we have a good office. We would appreciate any help you could give.”

Rhodes said his office has been trying to do more with less.

His budget request includes money needed to make the $200,000 payment on the county’s voting machines purchased last year.

Most of his requests are in line with previous years.

Stephens appeared with Chief Tax Deputy Denise Schuck and Chief Deputy Robert Sims.

He praised Schuck with putting the Tax Office in the best shape it had been in years.

Schuck said her biggest need is additional money for advertising expenses with putting legal notices and more in the local newspaper. She has a $36,000 budget for advertising and by the time the end of the fiscal year rolls around in June she is around $8,700 over that budget.

She is estimating it will run $44,718 this year.

She is working on measures that will get people in to pay before she would have to publish their names.

Schuck is asking for $46,000 for advertising for the next fiscal year.

Law enforcement calls have increased over the last year by 500 calls to 21,612 for Wood County, Stephens said.

”One of the things I would like to ask for is two more law enforcement deputies,” the sheriff said. ”You all have been very supportive in the past. I understand that money has been really tight, but I would like to increase our manpower from 38 to 40.”

The sheriff wants to be able to spend more time on cold case investigations with his current manpower.

Once new deputies complete their probationary period they get a pay increase of $3,060 and they had recent hires that would bring that number to over $21,000 as well as other deputies who got increases based on tenure.

”In the projected budget of 2021, we already hired two new deputies (recently) and we know we will have those increases,” Stephens said. ”I have asked for pay increases to three employees who are crucial to the operation of the department (one being the department’s IT specialist).”

Although no decision has been made, commissioners are looking at other counties that have done “needful things” levies to see if that is something they might pursue; this could fund additional law enforcement officers or prosecutors or other positions that might be needed. Some counties have used such levies to increase emergency medical coverage.

Commission President Blair Couch wants to talk with representatives of the local ambulance services about what the cost would be to add ambulance crews.