Cumberland County will spend $2.26 million to replace 26 Sheriff’s Office vehicles that went out of service due to wrecks. The County Board of Commissioners voted 7-0 on Monday to approve the purchases following discussion about whether all 26 should be replaced immediately.
The price is an average of about $86,950 per car. Each new car has a base price of $52,590, and law enforcement equipment and upgrades cost $34,362 per car, a county document says. An April 2 letter from Cumberland County Sheriff Ennis Wright to the commissioners says the county’s insurance provider declared the 26 vehicles to be total losses over the past several years.
The insurance paid about $341,000 in total for all the wrecked vehicles, County Manager Clarence Grier said.
The new vehicles will be Ford Police Interceptor Utility SUVs, according to county documents.
Commissioner Glenn Adams on Monday had questions about the $2.26 million purchase.
“It’s 26 fleet vehicles, but over and over again, we’ve been talking about the number of vacancies at the Sheriff’s Department,” Adams said. “So do we really need to do all 26 fleet vehicles if you don’t have the personnel to fill them?”
While the Sheriff’s Office is short-staffed, Grier said, the agency also has older vehicles that need to be replaced.
The county government should look at the vehicle inventory and vehicle needs of all county departments, not just the Sheriff’s Office, Adams said. At the Department of Social Services, Adams said, employees are using their personal vehicles to drive foster children from place to place, and that is a lawsuit liability risk.
“As we do this, we need to get that study back to all of our fleet vehicles, before we move forward,” Adams said. “Because you may not do as many here [for the sheriff], do some there [for Social Services] to be able to offset some of this, so they have some vehicles to be able to use, to transport these kids.”
Commissioner Henry Tyson, who is the commissioners’ liaison with the Sheriff’s Office, argued that the sheriff needs the 26 new cars now.
The sheriff normally asks for new cars when he makes an annual budget request, Tyson said.
“Last year the request was for 77, and I believe this board gave him seven,” Tyson said. “We’re working on a shortfall that we’ve had here, that’s been going on for many years, where he has not been made whole.”
Tyson said he understands Adams’ point about vehicles for the Department of Social Services, and that can be addressed. “But these are vehicles that the sheriff actually lost, that he was using. That were involved in an accident that weren’t the fault of his officers,” he said, and the insurance paid for the losses.
One of the cars was especially old, he said.
“The sheriff’s department recently had a deputy that was in a 2007 Ford Crown Victoria — they quit making that vehicle in 2011 — it had 200,000 miles on it, and the steering column fell apart while he was in pursuit and got in an accident,” Tyson said.
The deputies need confidence that their vehicles will work correctly “and they’re not riding around in a vehicle that should be an antique,” he said.
Commissioners Vice Chair Veronica Jones said both the Sheriff’s Office and Department of Social Services needs support, and that includes providing vehicles.
“One is not canceling out the other. This is one collaborative team here in Cumberland County,” she said.
The commissioners a few minutes later voted unanimously to buy the cars.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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