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PCSD marine patrol to take to water with upgraded boat
When the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department marine patrol takes to the water for the holiday weekend, it will do so in a new boat.
With funds from the annual Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Water Safety Grant as well as a trade-in of the old military surplus boat PCSD had previously utilized, the new Chaparral watercraft was obtained with no impact on the county budget.
A $12,000 purchase, the boat was funded in part by a $3,500 trade-in of the old boat, with the remainder to be drawn in four payments from the department’s annual $15,000 grant.
Even the grant is paid for by boat registrations, not taxes.
“This has no fiscal impact to taxpayers at all,” Sheriff Scott Stockton told the Banner Graphic.
Chief Deputy Phil Parker recently explained that to the Putnam County Commissioners and Putnam County Council that the old boat had become a bit of an albatross to the department.
As a military boat, it had always been a bit of an odd fit for a police patrol but it was, after all, free.
However, the external tube that keeps the boat afloat had started leaking, making the safety patrols a bit of a safety issue in and of themselves.
“It’s become high-maintenance,” Parker said.
Still, the boat had a decent run for the department considering it was taken out of commission by the military in 1998.
The “new” boat is actually a 2005 Chaparral that Deputy Matt Biggs located at an Indianapolis boat dealership.
Deputy Virgil Lanning, a member of the patrol who is also a Coast Guard veteran, then spent three hours inspecting the boat, making sure it would meet the need of the department.
“Matt and Virgil went a long way in getting our new boat,” PCSD Water Safety Officer Kim Suitors said. “They put in a lot of work and I really appreciate it.”
With commissioner approval last week, the sheriff’s department took possession of the new boat this week, with Parker even fielding a complaint of “a deputy hauling his personal boat with a department vehicle.”
When Biggs arrived on station and asked Parker if he wanted to see the new boat, Parker joked that he already knew all about it, “A yellow and white boat, right?”
To avoid such confusion in the future, Hollie Hutcheson of Hutch’s Body Shop not only put a sheriff’s decals on the side of the boat, but also the words “marine patrol” on the back so that the boat’s use is clear, even when it’s being hauled down the highway.
PCSD officers gave credit to both Hutcheson and Bill Newgent of JTN Equipment for installing the graphics and lights so quickly to get the boat ready for the water.
Although staffed by department personnel, the marine patrol is funded entirely outside of the PCSD budget, with deputies and reserves logging time outside their regular patrol hours.
“Everyting with the marine patrol comes out of the DNR grant,” Lanning said, “so it’s no department money, no overtime money.”
In the last three summers on the water, the marine patrol has kept its focus on water safety on Cagles Mill and Glen Flint lakes, leaving enforcement issues to Indiana Conservation Officers.
“Since we started this program, we have educted a lot of people, a lot of kids, on boat safety,” Suitors, a retired conservation officer, said. “And we’ve helped some people who were broken down get off the water safely.”
This has been the goal of the patrol since Stockton came into office — to act as a support to conservation officers.
“The conservation officers like that we do this because it takes some pressure off of them,” Stockton said.
“There are more lakes than there are COs,” Lanning added.
Parting with the old boat is just one small part of PCSD trying to get rid of its entire inventory of military surplus equipment.
When Sheriff Scott Stockton and Chief Deputy Parker came into office in 2015, they were shocked at the number of military surplus items that had been acquired by previous administrations.
The first step was to get the department out of the military surplus program with the federal government. That was accomplished in 2015.
Parker explained that thereafter the department returned certain high-risk or high-dollar items that remained on the federal inventory even after they were in the county’s possession.
That step has also been accomplished.
What remains are a number of items that are no longer on the federal inventory, but remain in the county’s possession. Most of these are no longer in use.
“I’m not kidding you when I say it includes the kitchen sink,” Parker said.
The remaining equipment includes wreckers, a giant forklift, a road grader, washers, dryers, a stove and even stainless steel sinks.
“I’m not sure what the thought process was,” Parker said. “It’s sitting in our impound lot as a giant monument to good intentions.”
Parker sought permission, and obtained it from the commissioners, to sell the remaining items at auction, thus freeing the impound lot and bringing some funds back to the county.
Likewise, the department will be auctioning off several of its decommissioned vehicles, another move approved by the commissioners.
The hope is that the funds — or at least a portion of them — will come back to the sheriff’s department. However, Auditor Lorie Hallett explained that based on Indiana State Board of Accounts rules, the money from both auctions has to go back to the County General Fund.
From there, it will be up to the County Council and the State Board of Accounts if the money will actually go back into the PCSD budget.
Parker said the money would be nice, but at this point that’s secondary.
“We just need to get them out of there,” Parker said.