Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler told the County Council he hopes a new strategy of sending a task force member out on overdose calls will make a dent in the heroin abuse surge that the county, and new Gov. Larry Hogan, have been battling.
An officer or someone assigned to the county's heroin task force now responds to every possible heroin-related call, Gahler said during a work session on his department's budget Wednesday.
"Heroin has never been more plentiful or cheaper, or more pure, and that's where our overdoses are coming from," he said, noting the 41 non-fatal overdoses and nine fatal ones from the drug in the county so far this year. "We think that number is probably low."
Overall, the Sheriff's Office is struggling to provide sufficient coverage with the amount of officers it has. He said he plans to match the county executive's $1,000 employee pay raise and will extend that to temporary or part-time positions.
The Sheriff's Office is requesting $70.9 million for Fiscal Year 2016, a $1.7 million increase from 2015. Much of that is due from seven full-time positions being created for the office's new role of providing animal control.
Harford County Executive Barry Glassman recently decided to shift animal control from his administration to the Sheriff's Office. The County Council must ultimately approve the budget, as it does for all county departments and Harford County Public Library.
A shortage of officers presents a problem for everything from making full use of the Harford County Detention Center to operation of a recently-acquired helicopter, which Gahler said "has been an issue."
"If I decide to keep it, I would need bodies," he said of the helicopter.
A 2010 expansion brought the Detention Center's capacity up to 757, but Gahler noted a lack of staff keeps part of the facility from being used.
The jail's population has been steady in recent years, not growing, he said, but the staff shortage nevertheless keeps the jail from operating in an optimal manner.
Monica Worrell, a member of the citizens' budget advisory board and a former Sheriff's Office spokesperson, praised Gahler for continuing to do more with less.
"I find you're grossly understaffed, underfunded and underpaid," she said.
The Sheriff's Office has mentioned the possibility of needing 50 deputies, as Councilman Pat Vincenti noted.
The average first-year cost for a correctional deputy is about $93,000 and a first-year cost for a law enforcement deputy is $159,000, mostly for a car, new weapons, training and other up-front costs, Gahler and Council President Dick Slutzky said.
A law enforcement deputy's cost, including salary and benefits and equipment, typically decreases to about $100,000 after the first year.
Prevention is the key
Gahler said the approach with heroin needs to focus on prevention, as very few addicts are able to permanently recover from the sometimes-deadly addiction. He added the county has a major "asset" in Joe Ryan, the head of Harford's drug office.
After the work session, he agreed law enforcement is often asked to carry the brunt of a problem that should be addressed with prevention.
"When we are dealing with overdoses or someone who is addicted, we are already too late," he said.
Earlier, Gahler told the council his office has worked hard to avoid criminalizing those dealing with addiction.
"One of the concerns that came out is, we are being unfriendly to the people who are suffering and targeting the dealers," Gahler said. "We have not charged a [single] one of those 41 surviving victims of overdoses."
Nevertheless, the race to get illegal heroin by those addicted has a connection to crime, he said.
"We're seeing an increase in break-ins to cars, building sites for the copper," he said. "It's all tied. Every time we solve one [crime], there's someone addicted to heroin on the other end of it."
The office has worked with Joe Ryan to give out a health card listing resources to every addict, and Gahler said every officer in Harford carries the cards.
"Heroin affects everyone, at all ages," he said, adding he has seen husbands taking the drug with their wives and parents taking it with children.
"It doesn't seem to have the same negative connotation that other drugs seem to," he said.
'Could be Harford...tomorrow'
Despite a solid relationship between Harford residents and law enforcement, Gahler warned the council that the civil unrest in Baltimore that his office saw close-up last week could happen anywhere.
"Just because we're in Baltimore doesn't mean it won't be in Harford County next time," Gahler, whose agency sent 22 deputies to the city at the request of Baltimore police, said to the council Tuesday.
"When the eighth largest police department in the nation calls for help, you know there's trouble," he said. "We were the only Sheriff's Office called upon for an initial response. We were the only ones working the front lines the first night."
Gahler said all the deputies were "criminally assaulted with debris" during riots, and one still has not returned to work. No one was seriously injured in Baltimore or needed treatment, the Sheriff's Office said earlier.
After a comment from Councilman Jim McMahan about the "outstanding relationship" between the community and the Sheriff's Office, Gahler said the unrest in Baltimore made him think no police department was immune to similar distrust.
"I hear a lot in Baltimore City, 'We have a police force that's very representative of the community as a whole,' and I saw not one minute of trust to those bodies given to them to do investigation," Gahler said. "I think this could happen anywhere."
"It was Baltimore City this time. We've seen it in small communities, we've seen it in big communities. It could be Harford County tomorrow," Gahler said, alluding to distrust and violence aimed at police that has drawn media attention recently.
This report has been updated to reflect a clarification regarding the cost of a second year sheriff's deputy's salary, benefits and equipment.