MONTICELLO — Although he was there last year making the same request, Sullivan County Sheriff Mike Schiff asked the legislators for five more full-time employees. “Our numbers are way up, we've been a lot busier than we have been,” Schiff said. “The five bodies I got last year brought me up to our baseline; that filled the ones I didn't have before. With the numbers I'm looking at, the numbers are going to be pretty dramatic, I'm probably looking at another five bodies that I'm going to ask for.”

Schiff was addressing the legislators during the Executive Committee meeting on Thursday. He suggested that they create a committee to discuss hiring five more people to the sheriff's office.

“Our dispatch has been off the hook. I'm thinking we're going to need two to four dispatchers. It's getting to a point where one person on the desk is not adequate when they get overwhelmed,” Schiff said.

The cost to hire five people would be around half a million dollars, Schiff estimated. But he said that would be less cost and less time than hiring officers.

Schiff said he is seeing growth in the county. “The work load is going up, we're picking up from the casino, from tourism in general,” Schiff said. “There's an increased level of traffic on our highways. We've got a water park that's coming online that I think is going to generate a tremendous amount of traffic. We can't fall behind.”

Economic growth yields decrease in county assistance

At the Health and Family Services Committee meeting on Thursday, Commissioner Joseph Todora addressed the legislature and said that they are seeing some of the lowest numbers of people applying for and receiving temporary assistance benefits.

He said the numbers haven't been this low since the year 2000 and attributes them to economic development in the county.

“I want to thank everybody's efforts in terms of spurring our economy, job growth, and getting business,” Todora said. “I believe that's what is reflected in these numbers.”

He also reported that food stamp numbers have remained stable. There is $20 million in money for food stamps each year. Todora said to be eligible for the food stamp program you have to be “incredibly poor” and that there are some people who are receiving only $16 a month from the department.

“That $20 million a year locally is invested in farmers markets, local grocery stores, Peck's Market, Shop Rite - all those places are where your $20 million in food stamps go,” Todora said. He said under President Trump's budget there would be a 25 percent cut to that. “Now imagine cutting $5 million out of your local economy, you're going to lose jobs at that point,” Todora said. “So I believe in a country that has plenty we should not let people go hungry.”

Trying to decrease number of hospital visits

Melissa Stickle, Director of Community Services, said they are working on a new initiative to help those who have repeat visits to the hospital. “We are working on an initiative with the Transition to Care Network to reduce re-admissions to the hospital, which is one of the major initiatives that the district and other agencies are working on,” Stickle said.

She said they monitor high-risk users on a monthly basis and there are about 180 individuals that they monitor. Of that, 50 percent are high-end users of service. “So what we did is we started to implement some initiatives, and one of those is follow-up phone calls so if someone has to go to the hospital and be discharged we're engaging them and following up,” Stickle said.

There are multiple reasons why people would have re-admissions to the hospital, including medical, psychiatric and some of them for detox, Stickle said. The initiative is coming to an end with the Care Network, but the Community Services office will continue in-house to reduce the number of hospitalizations within the community.

Auditors: county in good shape

Auditors from Drescher & Malecki, LLP were on hand to give the 2017 county audit report. They reported that the county is in good financial standing. Like many other people, they spoke about the increase of activity in the county. “The county is in a stable position, there are certainly a lot of challenges going on.”