As I start my fourth year in office as your Sheriff, I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday season. For those who lost a loved one this past year, I hope that you find some comfort in your many special memo- ries and in the thought of happy times you shared together.

It has been an honor to serve the residents of Wadena County these past three years. The sheriff’s office had a busy year again, with 5,539 calls for service. Overall our office handled a total of 17,096 calls county-wide in 2009. These were not just law enforcement calls, but also for fire departments, first responders and ambulance. Most of these calls were taken by dispatchers or officers who generate the call.

We have implemented many changes again this year within the sheriff’s office. I have utilized E-911 funding and drug forfeiture funds to minimize the impact on county taxpayers. We installed three new ergonomically-correct stations in the dispatch center to improve the work quality for dispatchers who put in 12 hour shifts to staff the center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. These stations and remodeling projects to install them were funded with E-911 funding.

For over 11 years, the county sheriff’s office has been plagued by a lack of space. We were able to correct this issue by shifting office spaces with probation, zoning and extension departments. Funding used for this move came from the building reserve fund, which had been set aside for building projects by the county board over the last several years and which, by statute, can only be utilized for this purpose. There was a tremendous amount of thought put into each department’s space needs by all involved. I thank all Wadena County department heads as well as the county commissioners for their foresight. For years, residents have heard talk of building projects ranging into the millions of dollars, and we together brain-stormed to fix these problems in the best interest of Wadena County taxpayers at a minimal cost which will hopefully serve us for years to come.

The Sheriff’s Office space expansion included administrative offices, filing

rooms for criminal cases and jail records, a deputies’

workstation office, computer lab and servers room with quality air control to maintain equipment for computers and servers, an interview and interrogation room, technical support room, criminal lab room which will be used for processing evidence and a storage room. We have enhanced security within all areas of the sheriff’s office with these improvements.

We have also been very active again this year in obtaining grant funding for extra patrol for the Safe & Sober Shift; Zap Program (through CHAMPS); alcohol and tobacco compliance checks (through CHAMPS), sex offender compliance checks, ATV, boat and water and snowmobile patrol. These various grants allow us to place more patrols in Wadena County during peak activity times of the year and make our county a safer place to live and visit. These types of grants come from taxpayers statewide, but if we weren’t proactive in seeking out and qualifying for these grants, other counties would do the same and we would still have to be out patrolling these areas with no extra funding.

An area of primary importance to me is the budget. The sheriff’s budget consists of over 100 various line items which make up the overall budget. My overall budget is divided into the sheriff’s office, jail and emergency management departments. I have worked diligently to manage your taxpayer dollars. This year has been one of the toughest budget years in probably the last 30 years, and we ended up using a total overall budget of 96.6 percent. I attribute this lower final number to paying out only $76,873 for out-of-county boarding in 2009, compared to over $200,000 in 2008. There has been a prisoner decline in all counties statewide, which I feel is great when you consider that people have more stress in their lives due to the economy.

I am very fortunate to have a great staff of administrators to assist me. Our budget for 2010 will be the same as 2009, with no tax increase in this area. I try to run a very tight ship when it comes to managing your money. We have had to make some very tough decisions concerning the budget this year. A sheriff should never jeopardize public safety at any expense.

The last thing I want to mention is my staff. Our jail received a 99.12 percent rating from the state Department of Corrections this year, and we ranked number one in the state out of 87 counties on Suspense Files. We had a 70 percent clearance rate in our office in solving cases through the state in crime statistics, which puts us in the top one-fourth in the state. These people are dedicated to serving you, and believe in what they are doing. I can’t say enough about the hard work these individuals do on a daily basis to serve Wadena County.

Many of the special things they do, along with your local police departments, fire departments, first response teams and ambulance services, are necessarily out of the view of the public. But they are special. If you get a chance, take a moment to thank these women and men for a job well done. I know they will appreciate your kindness.

I look forward to 2010.We have some major projects ahead of us this year. Wadena, Ottertail and Douglas counties are currently looking at combining our records so we can share a huge amount of in-house records which will improve many areas in the function of law enforcement. We are also currently involved in a 10-county study combining these counties into one regional PSAP (Dispatch Unit). I support the study, which the state is funding, but I’m not sure if combining would be feasible for Wadena County at this time. These types of combined services are going to be a big push by the state in years to come for the cost savings. Identity within the sheriff’s office is very important to me; it is no different when you are talking about a city, school or the local business down the road. This is who we are and I will only support these areas as long as our identity is not lost and it saves our taxpayers.

The 800 MHZ radio system, which we have been working on very hard these past three years, will be coming to Wadena County soon. The 800 MHZ, which came about after 9-11, is a digital communication system which all emergency services will switch to by 2012. We have prepared for this by budgeting, E-911 funding and seeking federal grants to cover our cost.

Another new thing we hope see this year is the E-Ticket writer, which will allow citations generated by deputies or officers to be entered into their incar computer and directly right from their squad computers to the courts. The majority of the cost will be funded by the 7th Judicial Court District or by drug forfeiture funds.

Today we have eight computers which monitor telephones, radios, paging, 911 mapping, opening doors, dispatch calls for service and jail records; and another four TV screens to monitor over 30 cameras within our jail and courthouse. Whether you support technology or not, you can see this is getting to be a huge area in law enforcement.

Have a safe 2010 year, and if you have any questions, please feel free to call me anytime at 218-631-7600 or email me at mike.carr@ co.wadena.mn.us. I look forward to working with you in 2010.

To learn more about the Wadena County Sheriff’s Office online go to: www. co.wadena.mn.us/sheriff. htm