The city council is betting nearly $65,000 that its newest crime lab employee will stick around long enough to make the investment worthwhile.
During its Tuesday meeting at the Municipal Complex, the board approved an employment agreement that would have the lab’s latent fingerprint analyst, hired earlier this month, on the hook to pay the city back for training costs.
If the city had opted to hire an already-certified analyst instead, Mayor Stephen Jones said the salary, estimated between $80,000-$85,000, would exceed the cost of training an entirely new analyst.
“So basically (we’re) saying that we’re going to ride with this person and train them and do this agreement to keep them here after they get trained, so they won’t leave us,” Jones said during the meeting.
Under the agreement, the city will pay $19,500 in tuition and more than $45,000 in lodging, meals and travel expenses to send the analyst to a Latent Print Examiner Training Academy from January through May 2027.
In return, the analyst must work full-time in the lab for at least five years after completing the academy and any additional training required for certification, including the ability to give expert testimony in court.
If she drops out or is removed from the academy for cause, the analyst owes the city $20,000 to cover the tuition cost, plus 10% annual interest. If she completes training but leaves before the five-year commitment period ends, she owes the city up to $25,000 on a sliding scale.
Claudette Gilman, the lab’s director, told the council the situation is unusual because fingerprint analysts, unlike other lab employees, can’t be trained in-house.
“We’re kind of lucky in the sense that I can train a drug chemist,” she said. “I cannot train a latent print analyst, so we have to go outside of the lab for it. … In that sense, yes, it’s very unique.”
City Attorney Jeff Turnage said the structure of the agreement mirrors one used for police officers whose academy training is covered by the city. They must repay about $7,300 in training and equipment costs if they leave within three years.
“If she completes successfully the academy, the amount she would owe is $25,000 tapering down over a five-year period to $0,” Turnage said, adding that the money will be expended from next fiscal year’s budget. “If she stays with us five years, she wouldn’t owe anything back.”
The council unanimously approved the agreement.
A new RV ordinance?
The council also unanimously approved a motion to table a years-old RV parking dispute until at least next week.
Kirk Sudduth, a resident of John Hancock Street whose property was annexed into city limits in the early 2000s, said he has parked his RV in his driveway for years. Doing so, however, violates the city’s ordinance requiring RVs to be stored on the side of or behind a home.
Sudduth said the sitting council in 2004 voted to table the matter because “they saw the issues that could arise.”
Building Official Nathan Katona on Tuesday asked the council to deny any exception to the ordinance. Sudduth, however, asked the council to revise the city’s ordinance entirely.
Providing photos, Sudduth told the council he is “not physically capable of storing” the RV beside or behind his home. Additionally, storing the unit off-site would incur additional costs, including storage fees and separate insurance.
He asked the council to consider “modernizing” the ordinance to provide exception in cases like his so long as the vehicle isn’t used as a dwelling and car tags are kept current.
“If they’ll update, at least make it where individuals that cannot physically meet their requirements, give us the option that we can at least keep it in our driveway,” Sudduth told The Dispatch after the meeting.
Ward 6 Councilman Jason Spears moved to table the matter no longer than April 29, the council’s next work session.
“I don’t want to take … 30 years, but I would like to at least … talk about it at the next work session, and make our discussion a little more thorough in light of the fact that he did take the time to put some of these different measures for us to consider that do have ramifications outside of this case,” Spears said.
The council unanimously approved tabling the matter to be discussed next week.
Other business
In other business on Tuesday:
■ Jones confirmed to The Dispatch that Shawanda Jones resigned from her contract position Tuesday as public information officer for the city;
■ the council approved Realtor Jerome Stephenson’s plan to combine two surplus lots sold earlier this month to construct a single-family home rather than the two homes previously approved by the council when advertising the property; and
■ approved drawing from three different accounts to cover a bulldozer repair estimated at nearly $79,500, an increase from the previous estimate of roughly $58,550.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 28 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
