Sinyard believes office will be able to operate without supplemental funds

Wednesday, November 29th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) _ Barring any unforseen difficulties, the Muskogee County Sheriff's office should be able to operate without any supplemental funding, the outgoing sheriff said Tuesday.

Sheriff Cliff Sinyard told the Muskogee County Excise Board that it will be close, but if he can collect outstanding bills, he can meet projected expenses.

The sheriff said he expects to receive about $62,500 in revenues from October and projects getting about $78,818 for November bills. Another $10,746 will be deposited in his accounts soon, he said.

``With those cash revenues and some belt tightening, and if those come in, we will not need additional appropriations,'' Sinyard said.

Mark Bonney, Sinyard's attorney, said the sheriff's income projections assume no major breakdown of equipment or serious medical expenses at the jail. He said Sinyard believes the potential for some additional expense is likely.

Sinyard cautioned that making it through December can be attributed to projected billings staying up.

``I want to emphasize, if that doesn't happen, obviously, to abide by law, we have to come back to the table and ask for more,'' he said.

Sinyard lost his re-election bid to Muskogee Police Officer Charles Pearson in the November general election. He will leave office in January, but is involved in the budgeting process for this fiscal year.

Pearson has already said he will have to cut staff in order to live within the department budget.

Sinyard's November payroll for 92 people totaled $107,710, according to the Muskogee County Clerk's Office. Of that amount, $10,389 was federal grant money.

Bonney said Sinyard will issue a memorandum ``to let his staff know you've got to really cut back as much as possible on spending.''

Sinyard requested $2.81 million for the fiscal year 2000-2001, more than half of the county's $4.4 million in expected revenues. The board and county commissioners allocated $616,241 for operation of the entire Sheriff's Department.

The $2.81 million Sinyard requested is bare bones and $3 million is needed to meet state mandates at the jail.

``The sheriff continues to believe that the amount he requested in his budget is necessary to operate the jail in a way the citizens of Muskogee County would want their jail operated,'' Bonney said.

The county's budget will not be officially certified until 5 p.m. Friday, unless a protest is filed. Bonney told the board Sinyard does not intend to protest the budget, but should Pearson choose to file a protest, they would be happy to file the protest on his behalf.

Without media and other attention to his budget woes, Sinyard would have scraped through the past fiscal years as other sheriffs had done, he said.

``Had I not been interfered with and my office been micromanaged, we'd not have been in this situation,'' he said.

The office of State Auditor and Inspector Clifton Scott investgated Sinyard's administration earlier this year and issued a report on Aug. 31 critical of Sinyard's management practices.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is looking at five of the 18 concerns in the audit report to determine whether those concerns involve criminal violations by Sinyard.

At the end of the last fiscal year, county commissioners give Sinyard's office more than $80,000 so the sheriff could meet payroll and other obligations.

The OSBI already is investigating an incident in which a teen-age jailer struck a mentally ill inmate.

The mentally ill inmate's legal guardian has filed a tort claim against the county, Sinyard and jail employees over the incident.