Kimball Police Chief Tommy Jordan
Mayor Rex PesnellKIMBALL, Tenn. - The Kimball Police Department recently hired some part-time help to fill in for an ailing officer, but did so without first getting approval from the Kimball Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
A Kimball officer was injured in a crash last month while working for the Marion County Sheriff's Department. And "he's going to be out for a while," Mayor Rex Pesnell said.
At the February meeting, Pesnell asked aldermen to ratify the hiring of at least two part-time employees to fill in while the full-time officer is out.
Pesnell said he spoke with Vice Mayor Jerry Don Case, the board's liaison to the police department, and Police Chief Tommy Jordan about the matter, and they decided "this would be the best route."
The board unanimously approved the move, but Alderman Johnny Sisk questioned why those part-timers were hired without the full board's approval beforehand.
Sisk said he didn't know about the hires until some constituents asked about it.
"People came up to me and said, 'What about these new employees?'" he said. "I said, 'What new employees?'"
Sisk said he told the constituents the town hadn't hired anybody, but the new officers were already working.
"I thought we had to bring it before a [board] work session or something to hire or talk about it," Sisk said.
Case said Kimball paid overtime to cover the injured officer's shifts over two weekends, and after that, he and Jordan worked together to fill that shift with part-timers.
He said the town experienced a similar situation back in 2011, and city leaders "did the same thing."
"We don't know how long [the officer] is going to be out," he said. "We were in an emergency situation. We took it, and we went with it so that the town would be covered. That's what we did."
One part-time officer already received a written compliment from someone he helped after a car accident during his second night on the job, officials said.
, citing his and another officer's "nice and courteous" approach to the situation.
"They really were impressed with them," Case said.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com