The state will not investigate the death of Jessica Martin, who died last week after collapsing in a holding cell at the Haywood County Justice Center.

“The State Bureau of Investigation is not planning to open an investigation at this time, given the results of the autopsy,” said Noelle Talley, a spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Justice, in a voicemail message.

The autopsy report hasn’t been completed or publicly released, but Talley said the justice department received preliminary information that helped them make their decision.

Martin died on Aug. 10 at MedWest Haywood after emergency services were called to the courthouse around noon that day, but no cause of death has yet been released.

Haywood County Sheriff Bobby Suttles said that Martin had been seen, at least once, by the nurse kept on staff at the jail before she was sent to the courthouse to await her appearance. The nurse determined that Martin didn’t need to go to the hospital.

Martin fell ill before making it to the courtroom, and life-support measures were started when the ambulance arrived.

Martin was a 20-year-old Haywood County native and Pisgah High School graduate who was in the county’s jail because she didn’t show up for a court date in late July.

The charge was a holdover from her sole conviction, a 2008 drug paraphernalia charge, to which she pleaded guilty.

She was given a year of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay a fine of $331. But she never paid, and then missed both resulting court dates, in February and July.

She had been in the jail for five days before her death, and Suttles asked the SBI for an investigation.

“That’s just standard procedure for us,” said Suttles. “Not every time, but almost every time, we request the SBI.”

Martin is survived by a two-year-old son, Dillon, as well as her mother and several grandparents, all of whom live in Haywood County.

Her father, who operated heavy machinery for a local construction company, died last year.

Counties with jail beds to spare will soon be able to make a little cash housing state prison inmates.

Under a new program introduced by the N.C. General Assembly earlier this year, minor criminals with short sentences won’t be housed in state prisons anymore. The new measure will mean more heads in local jails and, for some counties, a little more money in local funds, too.

Currently, county jails hold inmates charged with a crime and awaiting trial. Once sentenced, they are shipped off to state prison, unless their sentence is less than 90 days, in which case they serve the short time in the jail.

But starting next year, county jails could end up housing inmates with sentences up to 180 days who would have otherwise ended up in the state system. It will only apply to prisoners convicted of misdemeanors; felons will still go into the state system.

Essentially, it’s a logistical move, said Eddie Caldwell, vice president and general counsel for the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association. They’re the group that’s going to manage the project.

“The legislature believes that there is available capacity in the county jails, but we’ve never had a mechanism to match up the heads with the beds that are available,” said Caldwell.

The program is completely voluntary. Local sheriffs don’t have to take on the prisoners if they don’t want to.

But for those who do have extra room, they’ll get paid to house these prisoners that would have otherwise ended up in the state’s prisons. How much counties would get is not yet known, according to Keith Acree, public affairs director for the department of corrections.

“The payment structure has yet to be determined, whether it’s a flat rate or something else,” said Acree. But, he said, what is certain is that on January 1, the department of corrections will get out of the business of housing misdemeanor criminals.

It’s welcome news for some counties that have new or unfilled jails where empty beds are eating up money.

“If you’ve got a county that has beds sitting vacant, there’s a certain amount of cost built into that bed anyway, so the cost putting an inmate in there is incremental,” said Caldwell. “We think that those sheriffs who have vacant beds would be glad.”

Especially if it means they can make a little money to cover their jail overhead.

Originally, state lawmakers wanted to save money by dumping the misdemeanor criminals on counties without compensating them, an idea bandied about for several years, said Caldwell. Several other states already do it.

But clearly the state’s sheriffs didn’t like the idea unless it came with money to cover the inmates room and board.

In the current scenario, the state is still projected to save a bit of money. They’re closing four small, minimum-security prisons, including the Haywood Correctional Facility, which will cut some costs.

And the state will increase court costs starting this month to cover the cost of housing prisoners.

Statewide, the changes should affect between 5,000 and 6,000 inmates, said Caldwell. It’s hard to really pin down an exact annual number of those that could land in county jails — those with sentences between 90 and 180 days with misdemeanor crimes.

On one day in March when he took a tally, there were 1,700 inmates who fit the bill, and he figures that’s about average.

In Haywood County, there were 14 inmates convicted in 2010 who match the criteria. Jackson County had four, Macon County had eight and Swain County only two for that year.

So, on the surface, it doesn’t seem such a big deal for smaller, rural counties.

But in Wake County, the state’s most populous, there were 296 convictions in 2010 that would have to be housed locally somewhere under the new rules. And portioning those out could be a boon to empty jails.

Eventually, Caldwell sees this program giving counties an incentive to build bigger jails than they may need, theoretically paid for by prisoners other places didn’t want.

Currently, the N.C. Sheriff’s Association is figuring out how many beds there are in facilities around the state, then contracts will be signed before the program goes into effect at the beginning of next year.

The health care bills rolling into the Haywood County jail for inmate care might now be slashed by up to 25 percent after the sheriff’s office contracted with a company who will ferret out discounts on the county’s behalf.

Currently, the county pays full sticker price for all health care given to inmates, and since they’re legally obliged to foot the bill for any inmate treatment, it can get pricey.

Sherriff Bobby Suttles told county commissioners that $20,000 a year was on the low end of what they might expect to pay. In a year when an inmate needs major medical care, such as open-heart surgery, costs can skyrocket to more than $100,000.

What the company, Correctional Risk Services out of Brentwood, Tenn., would do is comb through the bills looking for mistakes, such as being billed for a higher priced procedure or more treatment than an inmate actually received.

A company spokesman said that they save counties an average of 20 to 25 percent. They work solely on commission, keeping 30 percent of any savings that are found.

In addition to checking the bills for accuracy, the company will also be able to save the county from shelling out for full-price procedures by bringing them into a PPO — preferred provider organization — which would give the county the same kind of discounts private citizens can get by being under a medical insurance plan.

If the county sees savings from the contract, the majority would be from such markdowns.

Suttles characterized this as a win-win situation for the county. If no reductions are found, they lose nothing, and whatever savings they do glean will be a big help to the sheriff’s healthcare budget, which is, he said, notoriously hard to manage.

“Right now, we’re holding $8,000 worth of bills,” said Suttles. “It’s just hard to budget for the unknown.”

Bryson City merchants can expect some relief from the downtown parking crunch once the old Swain County Jail is torn down in the next two weeks.

The crumbling jail was abandoned a couple of years ago for a new multimillion-dollar facility since it no longer met state codes. County commissioners have opted for the low-cost option of converting the old jail site into a public parking lot once the building is demolished.

“There is a need for downtown parking, especially in the summertime,” said Commissioner David Monteith. “A lot of merchants don’t have a place to park.”

“You’ve got to run yourself to death to find a parking space,” said Commissioner Glenn Jones. “It’s no different from any other town. Parking is always at a premium.”

Tourists riding the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad exacerbate the problem. Some train riders hunt for free on-street parking rather than paying to park in the train’s lot, tying up valuable downtown spots for hours.

There could be up to 20 additional parking spaces to accommodate downtown patrons now, and also future visitors to a museum planned nearby.

“We’re going to need a lot more parking for that project,” said Kevin King, Swain county manager. “The county doesn’t need another building.”

Commissioners are also planning ahead for a greenway with picnic tables at the edge of the parking lot along the river.

The historic courthouse, which is adjacent to the old jail, will one day house a heritage museum, along with a visitor’s center and store run by the Great Smoky Mountains Association, a nonprofit that supports the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by operating bookstores in the park’s visitor centers.

The visitor’s center will take up about a quarter of the first floor of the old courthouse, according to Monteith. The cultural museum will showcase the history of Swain County and its people, while the visitor’s center will increase the nonprofit’s presence in North Carolina.

But with the courthouse dating back to 1908, major repairs are needed to render the building safe for use. Monteith says the upstairs floor must be taken out and rebuilt, according to a study done early on in the project.

“That is why we had to literally stop before we got started,” said Monteith.

“It’s a laundry list of repairs and improvements,” said Commissioner Steve Moon. “But the historic value of that building is something that we cannot ignore. We need to preserve that all we can and do the best we can with it.”

King estimates it will cost about $800,000 to renovate the courthouse, significantly lower than the $4 million originally estimated. For now, the county has $150,000 in its hands, much of which came through grants from the GSMA, King said.

Several other grant applications are still awaiting responses.

In rare good news for Swain County’s jail, a new agreement will soon usher federal prisoners into the often half-empty facility.

Sheriff Curtis Cochran has worked for months to secure an official deal with the U.S. Marshals Service, which will pave the way for the return of federal prisoners and score the county $55 per prisoner per day.

“We’re thrilled to have this agreement with the Marshal Service and look forward to working with them,” said Curtis.

For now, it’s hard to say how many federal prisoners will be filing into Swain’s jail. The new deal falls short of a contract, so the marshals aren’t obligated to send any prisoners, and the jail is not required to set aside a certain number of beds for them. Such contracts only go to jails with federal money invested.

Swain’s new $10 million jail, which opened in December 2008, is more than four times larger than what the county needs to house its own inmates. County leaders hoped to house overflow inmates from other counties, but those counties were simultaneously building new jails of their own.

The county recently learned its last and best customer, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, is moving forward with plans for a jail of its own as well.

This flurry of jail building in the region has posed yet another problem for Swain — other new jails are stealing away a share of the federal prisoners up for grabs.

“Lucky for us, we had a lot of jails that were newly constructed,” said Lee Banks, supervisor of the U.S. Marshals office in Asheville. “When they came on line, we were quick to provide them with prisoners that we’ve had, Cherokee County in particular.”

Fortunately for Swain, though, a federal courthouse is located in Bryson City near the jail.

“It’s what, a mile away from where we’re at,” said Cochran. “If they’re going to utilize this courthouse, it would be more feasible for them to house their inmates here.”

Swain routinely housed federal prisoners until four years ago, when the Marshals Service pulled out due to safety concerns. The old jail was plagued by temperamental locks and lacked a fire sprinkler system. Back then, the daily rate for federal prisoners was only $30 per person.

Although the new jail opened 14 months ago, it has taken time to reconnect with the federal marshal service.

Banks said he hasn’t sent federal prisoners Swain’s way since the new jail opened more than a year ago simply because there have been less prisoners.

Swain’s jail is currently housing a lone federal prisoner, who’s been there since October.

“Now we’ve got plenty of jails on line, I have fewer prisoners,” said Banks. “I’m not complaining — it’s just that our prisoner population has been low recently.”

At this point, it’s difficult for Banks to pinpoint how many federal prisoners will soon be occupying Swain’s jail.

“We’re using multiple jails in multiple areas of the state,” said Banks. “So it’s hard for me to predict how many prisoners we’ll have in the future.”

Cochran estimates that he would have 21 beds available for federal prisoners, 16 male and five female, but that number is flexible, he said.

As of last week, Swain County had 40 inmates in its 109-bed jail, including 18 from Cherokee and one federal prisoner.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians recently got a big push forward in building its own jail after receiving an $18 million grant from the Department of Justice.

The grant may be excellent news for the tribe, but for Swain County, it’s a source of anxiety. Swain’s new oversized jail relies heavily on prisoners from Cherokee to fill its 109 beds and to subsidize the $10 million facility.

Recently, Swain Sheriff Curtis Cochran reported that out of 61 prisoners in the jail, 32 were from Cherokee and just 29 were from Swain.

Swain is already struggling to prop up the jail, which carries a $450,000 annual loan payment, because surrounding counties that once housed overflow inmates in Swain’s jail have recently built new jails of their own.

Consequently, Swain has seen the number of out-of-county inmates decline by half from 2005 to 2008, and along with it, a significant decline in jail fees, which average $50 per prisoner per night.

Cherokee has been a lifeline for Swain’s jail, with more than 90 percent of the overflow inmates Swain houses coming from the tribe.

Cherokee Police Chief Ben Reed said the tribe does send some inmates to jails in Haywood, Cherokee, Clay and Rutherford counties, but Swain gets the greatest share by far. Since Swain opened its new jail a year ago, the tribe has sent almost 90 percent of its prisoners there, Reed said.

Though the arrangement has worked out well for Swain, EBCI has been studying the possibility of building its own jail for several years. In fact, Swain leaders knew before embarking on its oversized jail that the tribe hoped to build its own eventually.

“With Cherokee’s growth and development, I think it’s time that we have our own jail,” said Reed. “We spend a lot of money and resources to transport our inmates into different county jails.”

EBCI hopes to eventually build a justice center that would bring its courthouse, police department and attorney general’s office under one roof, along with a jail and parking garage.

Cherokee’s grant, part of $236 million in stimulus and public safety funds allocated to tribes across the United States, can only be used toward building the jail.

But it may be a while before that prison is built, as the tribe is just now forming a committee to guide the construction process. Mickey Duvall, economic development director for the tribe, said they hope to elect a chairman in the coming weeks.

Learning from mistakes

After seeing counties like Swain struggle to fill an oversized prison, Reed acknowledged that the tribe must do its best to avoid overbuilding its own jail.

“We’re going to take a good hard look at where we are now and what our needs are going to be,” said Reed.

Swain County Manager Kevin King said the county’s jail was built big to accommodate population growth over the next 15 years, which he said would likely be accompanied by an increased crime rate. King planned to rely on prisoners from other counties in the short-term but thought the county would eventually fill up the jail with its own prisoners.

But Cochran said he doesn’t see that explosion in Swain’s population occurring fast enough to line the jail’s beds with Swain prisoners any time soon. Besides, much of the population growth in the mountains seems to involve retiring baby boomers or second-home owners, who are less likely to be committing crimes.

Meanwhile, Cochran is working with the U.S. Marshal Service to win back federal prisoners to the Swain jail. The marshals originally pulled out their prisoners due to the crumbling status of Swain’s old jail and its lack of fire sprinklers.

Cochran said all his paperwork is in with the marshals but admits it could take a while before they make a decision.

“It’s a slow process when you deal with the federal government,” said Cochran.

While County Commissioner David Monteith has brought up the idea of putting unused jail space to another use, Cochran just doesn’t find that feasible.

“A jail is a jail, that’s what it is,” said Cochran.

King pointed out the silver lining amongst dark clouds, stating that food costs would drop after Cherokee prisoners pull out. Swain County saw the cost of food at the jail climb 49 percent last year. But that doesn’t settle how the county will make up for the loss of revenue from the tribe when it builds a jail of its own.

King said Swain will have a few years to figure that out.

“As far as short-term, nothing’s going to change,” said King. “Long-term, hopefully the economy will gain what it lost.”

When it comes to Swain’s jail troubles, it’s easy to play the blame game, Cochran said, but no one could deny that Swain County needed a new jail.

“The one we had was completely dilapidated,” said Cochran, who was not in office at the time the decision was made. “Did we need a $10 million jail? I don’t know.”

Misuse of county credit cards by a Swain jailer has prompted tighter controls on charge card use across all departments.

Earlier this year, a jailer purchased a $500 or $600 big-screen TV with the county’s credit card at Sam’s Club, said County Manager Kevin King.

The officer came back from a shopping trip for prison supplies with the TV, saying that she would reimburse the county for the purchase. Even though the detention officer followed through on that promise, she was fired.

Finance Director Vida Cody said a supervisor should have informed all employees about the county’s policy on making purchases, but Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran said it shouldn’t take training to realize that buying a TV with county money is wrong.

“Common sense would tell you that’s not allowed,” said Cochran.

The out-of-line purchase was flagged in the county’s annual audit but was not serious enough to launch a full-on fraud audit. Auditor Eric Bowman simply called for better internal controls so the misuse would not escalate into a bigger problem.

That misuse of the credit card was “one of many,” according to finance director Vida Cody. Employees in the Sheriff’s Department have also exceeded their meal allowance of $34 a day for three meals and made work-related purchases of more than $100 without getting prior approval by the finance department.

The finance officer is supposed to approve every purchase over $100 to ensure there’s enough money in the budget for it. An exception, however, could be made for emergency purchases, like repairs on a squad car that has broken down.

Now, all county employees can only buy supplies online on the Sam’s Club Web site, rather than at the physical store. Before hitting submit on that online order, though, Cody must check a printout of the purchase to ensure there’s enough money budgeted for the buy. After Cody approves the order and the employee makes the purchase, Cody must compare the printout of the receipt against the original printout.

To help decrease spending in the face of a budget crisis, Cochran said his department is also cutting down on travel expenses, only making trips when they are “absolutely” necessary.

Cody said no matter what, it is difficult to have complete control over the county’s credit cards, as employees may not always pay attention to how much they’re spending.

“It’s easy to want to use those cards when you have it on hand and go over your limits,” said Cody. “You could operate on trust, but people are human too ... The economy is bad. People might do things they might normally not do.”

When Swain County opened a new $10 million jail last fall with 109 beds — four times bigger than necessary for its own inmates — it was banking on housing federal prisoners and those from other counties to subsidize the cost.

Instead, the number of inmates housed from outside the county has shrunk dramatically, not grown. As a result, the oversized jail has been a drain on county coffers and proved a source of contention in an on-going feud between the sheriff’s office and county commissioners.

County Manager Kevin King says the onus falls on the sheriff to court inmates from other counties to fill the jail.

“He said it wasn’t his place to get contracts, but it is,” King said. “It is going to take the sheriff talking to the other sheriffs.”

But Sheriff Curtis Cochran says the commissioners should have secured commitments from other counties before embarking on the bigger jail, which was already in the works when Cochran took office in late 2006.

“I believe one thing I would have done was to have contracts in hand,” Cochran said. “I would want to think if I didn’t have contracts in hand I would have thought about a smaller jail.”

The county was supposed to line up commitments as a condition of its federal loan to build the jail. Terms of Swain County’s loan with the U.S. Rural Development program stipulated “the applicant obtain written commitments from the other parties who have verbally committed to wanting access to jail beds.”

That never happened, however. Instead, the sheriff at the time, Bob Ogle, got verbal commitments, King said.

No demand for jail beds

Since Cochran took office, Swain has seen the number of inmates it houses from Graham, Cherokee and Haywood counties, as well as federal prisoners under the custody of the U.S. Marshall Service, all but dry up. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is the only outside entity contracting with Swain for jail space on a significant level.

The reason appears to have little to do with Cochran, however.

Like Swain, both Haywood and Cherokee counties have built new jails and can now handle their own inmate volume in-house. When Swain embarked on a new jail in 2005, it was common knowledge that other counties were doing so as well, but Swain overbuilt anyway.

Graham County is one of the only counties that still faces chronic over-crowding at its jail. But instead of sending inmates to Swain, it now sends almost all of its overflow to the new Cherokee County jail, according to Graham County’s chief jailer.

Cherokee County is closer for Graham, saving time and money on transport. In addition, Cherokee County charges only $40 a night per inmate while Swain charges $50 a night.

Cherokee County’s new jail — sporting 150 beds — is even bigger than Swain’s. It is often only half full, however — even with Graham County’s overflow and federal prisoners that once went Swain’s way — adding to the glut in jail beds the region seems to have these days.

As for the decline in federal prisoners, that trend was under way prior to Cochran taking office in late 2006. The U.S. Marshall Service had come to view Swain’s old jail as inadequate and unsafe. It was riddled with cracks and leaks and plagued by temperamental locks. But the biggest concern was no sprinkler system, the dangers of which came to light when eight people were killed in a fire at the Mitchell County jail.

“After the fire in Mitchell County there were concerns about older facilities without adequate fire suppression,” said Kelly Nesbit, chief deputy with the western district of the U.S. Marshall Service.

Nesbit began pulling federal prisoners out of the Swain jail and housing them elsewhere. Although Swain opened its new jail last fall, federal prisoners have yet to return. Nesbit said they simply got used to using other jails, and it has taken a while to get Swain back on the radar as a viable facility.

“The federal government moves slow. It just take a while for things to turn around,” Nesbit said.

The U.S. Marshall Service has 15 jails west of Interstate 77 that it uses to house prisoners, Nesbit said. But Bryson City is the location of a federal court, so it would be convenient to start housing them there again, he said.

Whose fault?

Cochran blames county leaders for the decline in federal prisoners. He said the county threw away a chance to put in a smoke evacuation system in the old jail that would have satisfied safety concerns and allowed them to keep housing the federal inmates.

The Marshall Service even came through with a $30,000 grant to help pay for the smoke suppression system, but Swain never acted on the grant and it was rescinded.

Cochran said the Marshall Service pulled strings to get the grant for Swain and was perturbed Swain decided they didn’t want it after all.

“The $30,000 allocated for Swain County was only provided after numerous phone calls and letters between myself and headquarters,” U.S. Marshall Gregory Forest wrote in a letter to Sheriff Bob Ogle in December 2003. Forest wrote that he wanted to continue their “long working relationship” with the county, but that the county “must complete this process without delay.”

The Marshall Service perceived it as a snub, Cochran said.

“They seemed to think that Swain County just wasn’t interested in housing their inmates because they wouldn’t accept the money after they went to great lengths to get it to help upgrade the jail,” Cochran said.

King said the county walked away from the grant because it wasn’t enough to cover the cost of the system.

“The system would have cost a lot more than $30,000. It would have been around $100,000. That was just not doable,” King said.

Ultimately, the decision cost the county more in lost revenue than it would have spent to install the system. The county would have made its money back on the system in less than two years if federal prisoners had continued to flow Swain’s way at the same volume as years’ past. Instead, the county is now entering its third year without housing federal prisoners.

Cochran wasn’t sheriff during the episode over the sprinkler system and said he didn’t understand why they weren’t getting federal prisoners anymore. Cochran recently called a meeting with the U.S. Marshall Service to figure out what the problem was.

“After I got to investigating it a little bit and talked to the right people as to why we weren’t getting inmates, we started working on it,” Cochran said.

County blames Cochran

County commissioners suggested Cochran is to blame for a declining number of inmates being housed at the Swain jail from outside the county. The theory was vocalized during a county budget workshop in June. Cochran heard about the accusation and challenged King to name the counties that allegedly had a problem with him.

“I said ‘If there is somebody out there let me know so I can make amends,’” Cochran said. Cochran asked for the clarification three times, including twice via email.

King responded that he knew of no entity in particular other than a miscommunication with the Eastern Band last year. The Eastern Band, however, is the only entity that actually houses more prisoners with Swain now than it did three years ago.

Cochran said he is doing what he can to court other counties.

“When we moved into the jail I sent out an email to every sheriff’s office in the state and let them know we were in our new facility and had bed space,” Cochran said.

Cochran also met with the Graham County commissioners in the spring, and recently met with the U.S. Marshall Service.

One cloud hanging over the Swain jail is the escape of a murder suspect earlier this year. The suspect had been slipped a key by a jailer who ran away with the suspect. Cochran said the inside job was not a reflection on the security of the jail itself.

The escape has no bearing on whether to house overflow inmates there, according to Nesbit with the U.S. Marshall Service and the chief jailers from Graham or Cherokee counties.

“That’s happened in federal institutions before,” Nesbit said of escapes. “It is just part of the kind of business we are in.”

Declining inmate nights

Out-of-county inmates housed in the Swain jail have declined drastically under Sheriff Curtis Cochran compared to the last year of former sheriff Bob Ogle’s tenure.

2005-06    8,029 inmate nights from out-of-county

2008-09    3,940 inmate nights from out-of-county

The new Swain jail costs the county $610,000 a year more than the old jail: $450,000 in debt payments and an additional $160,000 on overhead and staff.

The county hoped to make $500,000 a year housing prisoners from out of the county to offset the cost.

The county’s old jail was unsafe and dilapidated, so a new one was in order anyway. County leaders figured they may as well make it extra big and try to subsidize the cost by housing inmates from out of the county, and end up with a new jail for relatively little of their own money.

But revenue projections fell far short. Over the past 12 months, the county only made $140,000 housing out-of-county prisoners, a far cry from the half million it hoped for, according to County Manager Kevin King.

King said that the jail is not an undue burden for the county, however.

“We are making it just fine,” King said. “We are covering the debt. We are covering the operation. We are covering personnel.”

That said, if the new jail brought in more money, it could bolster the sheriff’s budget — which is a bitter source of contention between the county commissioners and Sheriff Curtis Cochran.

“When he first started as sheriff, I told him all this is done as a business plan,” County Manager Kevin King said. “The more revenue generated the more deputies and law enforcement we are going to be able to fund.”

When the new jail opened last fall, the county added five additional jailers, two new deputies and an extra secretary.

But King said the additional staff was contingent on an influx of inmates, which never materialized.

“It is like McDonald’s or anywhere else. If you aren’t selling hamburgers they are going to lay people off and send them home,” King said.

As the county grappled with a budget shortfall for the new fiscal year, commissioners looked to the jail to make cuts. The county cut four positions that had been added in the past year.

Two of the laid-off staff had been hired as jailers but had since been made deputies after Cochran realized he didn’t need that many jailers. A third layoff targeted one of the two new deputies added over the past year. The fourth layoff targeted the additional secretary position added over the past year.

An ongoing feud

Cochran still has one more deputy and three more jailers than he did a year ago, but has publicly criticized the commissioners’ decision to cut his staff. He accused the county commissioners of jeopardizing the safety of Swain County’s citizens by underfunding his department.

Cochran had increased deputies on the night shift from two to three. Now, he’s back down to two. If both are tied up on calls, residents are left with no backup, he said.

King points out that Cochran’s budget is still bigger than his predecessor’s, former sheriff Bob Ogle.

In reality, the Cochran’s budget comprises the exact same percentage of the total county budget now as it did under Ogle.

For the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the sheriff’s office accounts for 8 percent of the total county budget and the jail accounts for 7 percent of the county’s budget. It’s the exact same percentage as 2005-2006, the last budget allocated by commissioners under the tenure of former sheriff Bob Ogle.

Cochran’s supporters have accused the commissioners of playing politics with his budget. The commissioners are all Democrats, while Cochran is a Republican.

“There is nothing political about this issue,” King countered.

King pointed to the number of new vehicles the county provided Cochran’s office this year. Typically, the county replaces two or three vehicles a year, and sometimes skips a year altogether. This year, the county bought five new vehicles for the sheriff’s office.

Cochran and the commissioners have been warring over the sheriff’s budget since Cochran took office in late 2006. Cochran suffered a major blow to his own salary when the commissioners ended a lucrative arrangement to feed inmates enjoyed by Cochran’s predecessors. When the commissioners decided to end the long-standing practice on the eve of Cochran taking office, it was seen as political retribution.

Cochran has a lawsuit pending against the commissioners, claiming they effectively reduced his salary in violation of state statutes. Commissioner David Monteith has consistently sided with Cochran and against his fellow commissioners on budget issues.

Budget expenses

Swain county budget expenditures by year:

Jail, 2009-2010:    $875,000

Jail, 2006-2007:    $715,000

Percent of total county budget both years:    7%

Sheriff Dept., 2009-2010:    $964,000

Sheriff Dept., 2006-2007:    $796,000

Percent of total county budget both years:    8%

A murder suspect and the guard who allegedly helped him escape from the Swain County jail have been returned to North Carolina.

Former jailer Anita Vestal arrived at the Macon County Detention Center Monday (May 18), said Macon County Sheriff Robbie Holland. Inmate Jeffrey Miles is being held at a prison in Raleigh, according to Asheville Citizen-Times reports.

Vestal and Miles have been held in a Vallejo, Calif., jail since they were captured at a motel in the area April 19 after nearly a month on the run.

Investigators believe Miles used a key that Vestal provided him to unlock a door and let himself out of jail on March 21. Miles then hid in a van that Vestal drove to her apartment. The pair left in Vestal’s father’s Ford Ranger pickup.

Miles and Vestal waived extradition, which expedited their return to North Carolina. They were driven back to the state by officials with the North Carolina Department of Corrections.

Holland said the Swain County Sheriff’s Department asked him to hold Vestal at the Macon Detention Center prior to her return to the state.

“I think the fact of the matter is because she’s a former employee for the Swain Sheriff’s office, it’s very appropriate for her to be held at a different facility,” Holland said.

Vestal is being held in the women’s section of the prison, and has not had additional security extended to her.

Holland said he had no idea if the arrangement was permanent. The Swain County Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office will decide when and if Vestal is moved.