Farmington • Some Davis County officials recoiled when Sheriff Todd Richardson asked for a nearly $15 million budget increase that includes funding for 84 additional personnel.
County Clerk-Auditor Curtis Koch told Richardson that the requested increase would force a tax increase of the same amount, and Koch and Commissioners Jim Smith and Bret Millburn said the proposal was sprung on them with almost no warning.
Richardson and top aides said during a budget hearing Tuesday their requests are justified by increased county and jail populations along with more substance abuse and mental illness among jail inmates.
The Standard-Examiner reports that the budget conflict flared against a backdrop of controversies over operations at the county jail, where six inmates died in 2016, and several critical audits of questionable spending in the sheriff's office.