Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Jim Buice

For the Clemmons Courier

Entering the home stretch into completing the proposed fiscal year 2025-26 budget, the Clemmons Village Council faced “one outstanding question” involving the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office in its early May meeting.

Amy Flyte, assistant village manager, referenced a handout from the budget retreat in late April, telling the council she had two scenarios: 

• Option A, with a net gain of two deputies at an annual cost of $2,713,235 (which is currently included in the budget, and represents a $358,655 increase over last year).
• Option B, with a net gain of three deputies at a cost of $2,897,342 (includes a $184,107 increase over Option A, and a $542,762 increase from last year).

“I would like to get consensus on either Option A or Option B,” she said.

What followed, after a lengthy discussion, was ultimately approval for Option A, but the exchange included varying opinions on the topic from the governmental body, staff and a closer look at the inner workings of the Sheriff’s Office. 

Another sidebar included mentions of vehicles and investigators without context except for those directly involved, but Flyte later clarified.

“The village inquired about getting credit back for an investigator car since it was not at the end of its lifespan and that request was denied by the county,” she said. “Therefore, when reclassifying an investigator to a patrol deputy, we would have to purchase two new cars — one for each new patrol deputy and that investigator car goes back to the sheriff’s office fleet.”

The conversation in the meeting started with the need to buy vehicles, and council member Mike Combest asked about “some sort of consequence for adding a third deputy. If we had an extra deputy, these number of bad things going down and this number of good things would go up.”

Flyte said she wasn’t sure if the data was available to provide that. Then Combest countered with: “Is our gut, I am assuming, is it worth a buy?”

Then Flyte said, “He (Lt. Jody Chatham) said in the budget retreat that he was going to ask for the position next year regardless.”

Chatham, who was present for the council meeting, then said: 

“What we had talked about — the Sheriff’s Office, not the council — was there is a definite need. The problem is we don’t have enough people working in the evening to handle the call volume currently. So what happens is a lot of times we have to call for deputies outside the Clemmons area to come and answer calls.

“With the response time, I try to keep that under 10 minutes. The reason for that is the people in Clemmons like for the deputies to be there when they call now. They think we’re sitting around the corner, but we’re not. Sometimes it happens that way, sometimes it’s a longer wait time.” 

Chatham said that “the Code 2 — routine but get there as quick as you can calls — they are the ones that are lagging behind,” and then added that the peak call times are usually from 2 in the afternoon to 9 or 10 at night. 

“Yes, I was going to ask for it next year,” he said of adding to the force, “but we’ve talked about this year, so we can make either work.”

Chatham then talked about how things have changed in Clemmons over the years with all the tremendous growth and changes in the world.

“You’ve seen what’s going on,” he said. “This is what’s going on. We’ve got an uptick in the homeless population, we’ve got an uptick in people walking, we’ve got an uptick in mental illness. People are being brought here and dropped out here. They’re getting here some way or another. Those calls take time. 

“We had one the other day at Agape Faith where two people, one wanted to (go to) the hospital, one had to go to jail. We ended up taking two deputies off the street for about two hours so that left the one deputy, me, to answer all the calls.”

That led to the council discussing more of the details, with Bradley Taylor saying: “Like when we hear that a resource may not be needed, but I’m thinking about all the things we heard tonight, that we’re growing, got more people, there’s an uptick in issues…”

And Michelle Barson adding: “That’s one of my hesitations in moving forward with the three deputies right off the bat, one shift and two additions, as I’d rather do the one shift and one addition, and let’s see how that plays out.”

Combest followed with: “I reluctantly think you may be right, so there’s no harm in buying into seeing how that works and see if we have a need for three. That’s the most prudent. My instinct is the opposite, but…”

Randy Wooden added: “There are a hierarchy of needs, and one of the big ones is the safety and being secure and the perception of being secure. And seeing patrol cars and seeing them showing up helps our residents feel more secure. And if we can get it done with Option A, then the other question is if we go to B, where do we pull that money from because we kicked that around at the last meeting?”

Flyte said the council could either make a cut to the draft budget or the money could be pulled out of the General Fund.

Ann Stroud, finance director then weighed in: “Capital outlay is a choice. Public safety is a choice. So you can cut back on something or we can take it from fund balance for a year and see how that goes, but then you probably have to make some kind of cut next year somewhere. Right now, we have a very healthy fund balance. But also, I know you have some things that you want to do.”

After a few more comments from council and staff, Barson said: “I think we can revisit this in six months. Jody’s here, and he will let us know. He could say, ‘Guys, listen this isn’t working,’ and we could make a different decision at that time, but let’s see how this works, and it’s in budget.”

Mayor Mike Rogers added an OK, and Flyte concluded the discussion on this item on the agenda.

“So it’s Option A,” she said. “I got consensus. I just needed that number to go into the final budget.”

The presentation of the fiscal year 2025-26 budget for the council was scheduled for Tuesday, May 27, at 6 p.m., instead of the usual Monday night because of the Memorial Day holiday, and calls for a public hearing on Monday, June 9, at 6 p.m. at Town Hall to adopt the Budget Ordinance and to set the Stormwater Utility Fee Rate.