NORWICH – The timing of this year’s record-breaking floods couldn’t have been worse for the Chenango County Sheriff’s Department.

Coupled with retention problems and the large number of personnel in training, the recent emergency caused Sheriff Thomas J. Loughren to request a budget line item transfer of $143,000 in overtime expenses.

“During the last three weeks, most of our people were working their eight hour shift plus four hours of overtime to make up for the people not there,” the Sheriff told members of the county’s Safety & Rules Committee Wednesday. “We’ve been massively training. There’s a lot of things happening (with personnel).”

The department has been plagued with turnovers.Two out of every five corrections officers trained leave for either better paying jobs, or after deciding the job isn’t for them, the Sherrif said. The lack of union contracts hamper the situation as well.

“We’re hoping to get a contract soon,” Loughren said regarding ongoing labor negotiations.  “It would slow down turnovers.” The department is currently down seven officers, and several others are in training, including police officers, dispatchers and detectives. 

Many corrections officers also have vacation time to use up this summer as the number of new employees in training programs last summer resulted in an overall  ban on vacations.

There are currently 58 corrections officers on staff, including those provisionally hired. The Sheriff plans to hire 15 more over the next several weeks.