Bradley County (Tenn.) Sheriff Eric Watson’s request to move money from deputy salaries and equipment to supply jail inmates with towels, soap and bunks set off a lively discussion in the county commission’s finance committee Monday.
Watson asked to shift around $36,000 within his department budget after the jail failed a surprise inspection by the Tennessee Corrections Institute last month.
That Feb. 22 inspection found inmates crammed into what are supposed to be temporary holding cells, with no hygiene or bathing supplies, no uniforms and limited access to showers. The inspectors also found inmates sleeping on concrete floors along with broken showers, sinks, and toilets; a kitchen with broken equipment and water standing in the floor; and a leaking roof in one cell.
The sheriff wanted to move $23,082.88 from jail deputy salaries to buy mattresses, blankets and stackable beds so inmates wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor, and another $1,000 to install stainless steel on the wall in a washroom off the kitchen where constant humidity has left a brown stain on a wall.
Commissioners Dan Rawls and Thomas Crye, who have been highly critical of Watson, grilled his finance director, Cassandra Stone, about why the money was needed now. The jail spent weeks and thousands of dollars last year to fix the same problems cited in the most recent inspection. And maintenance money is built into the sheriff’s office budget, Rawls said.