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Many questions about sheriff in 2 counties

On Feb. 9, the Polk County Board of Supervisors approved the hiring of a new employee in the Sheriff’s Office. His name is Steve Hoffman, and he was hired with a respectable taxpayer funded salary of $141,786 per year. There’s just one problem, Mr. Hoffman already has a job as the sheriff of Marshall County — an elected position, where he is making another $93,005 per year courtesy of those taxpayers. And it appears he isn’t planning on resigning his office for the foreseeable future.

Once you get past the initial disbelief that this is happening, and start to look at the facts you are left with very serious questions regarding how Mr. Hoffman proposes to perform two full time, management level, law enforcement jobs that are nearly 40 miles apart.

Do his employers know this is happening?

How long is this going to continue?

Since he can only be present in one county at a time, and most of the people he deals with work weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., what kind of delays does that cause?

Will any employees be getting raises to help cover the additional work they will be doing in his absence?

How is he dividing his time between the two counties?

How is he accounting for his time so that the taxpayers know they are getting their money’s worth?

Does he have a company vehicle or vehicles, is he allowed to drive it/them between jobs, who pays for those expenses, and how are they tracked?

How does he plan to handle the exhaustion of working two full time jobs and commuting over an hour and a half each day while making potentially life and death decisions?

Do these jobs require him to live in the county?

If there is an emergency, which county takes priority?

If he gets into an accident while traveling between jobs, which one will be held liable?

Everybody knows that when you get a new job you give your employer proper notice and then leave to start the new one. If any of us tried to do this, we would be fired. Law enforcement, and especially elected officials, should at least be held to the same standards as everyone else.

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