Tax dollars bought commissioners' guns

The Elmore County Commissioners used local property tax dollars, in part, to help pay for the purchase of handguns for their personal security, the Mountain Home News has learned.

Commissioner Craig McCurry, who seemed genuinely surprised at the revelation, admitted that the commissioners had "made a mistake" in the acquisition of the handguns.

"It appears that almost all of the perceptions of what we blessed have been proven wrong. So now we have to figure out the best way to fix it.

"In my mind, we have some work to do to make this right."

Last spring, the sheriff's department applied for, and subsequently received, a federal Local Law Enforcement Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to standardize the weapons in the sheriff's department. Previously, deputies had been forced to purchase their own handguns, resulting in a large number of widely divergent weapons being used.

The third paragraph of the grant application specifically states the money can be used only for the "procurement of equipment, technology, and other material directly related to basic law enforcement functions."

But the commissioners decided to add four additional weapons beyond those needed by sheriff's department officers, one for the county prosecutor, who is an officer of the court along with the deputies, and three for themselves.

Greg Berry was one of the two deputies who helped prepare the grant (the other was Nick Schilz who has been on vacation out of state since the story broke, and thus has been unavailable for comment or confirmation).

After the application was first presented to the commissioners, Berry said, "Nick came to me and told me the commissioners wanted to get some additional handguns for themselves and Aaron (Bazzoli, the county prosecutor). He said they wanted to get them through the cheaper rate" available by purchasing them through a dealer for law enforcement purchases. In addition, no tax would be paid on any of the weapons since they were being bought by a government entity.

Berry said he objected to the addition of the extra weapons and pointed out that the grant wasn't going to cover the extra costs, but the order eventually came back to him to add them into the application.

Those four guns were added to the 21 being purchased for the sheriff's department. The original cost of the 21 firearms for the sheriff's department came to $9,631 Berry said, including holsters, extra clips, and belt clip holders. But with the extra guns, the cost came to $11,489.

"We had to find some money in the sheriff's department budget to pay the extra," he said, which amounted to "about $1,500" of local tax funds beyond the grant value, after the final bill came in.

Furthermore, Berry said, because the commissioners requested versions of the weapons that carried only eight-shot clips, rather than the 15-shot "military" versions that law enforcement officers use, "we can't actually use them" in the sheriff's office because "they won't fit the holsters" for the guns that have the wider handle to carry the 15-shot clips.

"Right now, we don't have any spare guns, and unfortunately, even if they (the commissioners) were to turn those weapons over to us, we couldn't use them. If we'd had any extra money in the grant, we'd have used it to get some spares" for the deputies, he said.

Sheriff Rick Layher admitted he hadn't monitored the grant application closely and assumed the funds for the extra guns were going to come from the commissioners' or the prosecutor's budget.

"When this first came up, I really didn't think anything of it. It didn't cross my mind it was a perk," Layher said, noting prosecutors often carry guns because of threats made by criminals they put away and he really didn't question the commissioners' request. He said it was clear from the beginning that the guns for the commissioners were not theirs to keep once they left office.

McCurry said that "when Nick approached Larry to standardize the weapons the first question we asked was whether or not it required any matching funds," that would have to come from local property tax dollars.

"I wasn't aware of that," he said when informed that local tax dollars had been used to round out the purchase. "I would have never supported that."

"If that's true, then it's not right. I think we'd either have to send them back or buy them personally" to reimburse the county, including paying the tax the county didn't pay when the guns were originally bought.

McCurry said he had been threatened by several citizens over county actions since he took office, so he considered the matter one of personal security, even though he admitted, "I've never taken mine out of the box. My impression was, we'd only use them if we were traveling around the county" on official business.

He also said he wasn't aware the grant criteria prohibited the use of grant money for other than law enforcement personnel. "To be honest, I don't think we looked at the grant that close. We didn't have all the details of the grant, and we should have, when we ordered the four extra guns."

He insisted however, that while it may have been inappropriate for the commissioners to obtain the guns, he felt there was a clear need for Prosecutor Bazzoli to have one.

Bazzoli said he hadn't started carrying his gun yet, but admitted that there were times when he felt he might need one as a result of the occassional threats he gets from criminals he prosecutes.