Greetings, Fearless Piedmonteers, and welcome back to Your Source For The Real Story!
Hope all the Dads out there had a great Father's Day.
So, here's a Sunday Monday edition for your reading pleasure.
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| Celebrating 15 years of The Chronicles June 20th, 2025 |
Sheriff Ezell Brown
Last week, the Newton Co BOC revised the proposed budget & found about $4 million to cut. A majority of these cuts came from two of the biggest line-items - Sheriff's Office & Jail Operations, both under the purview of Newton Co Sheriff Ezell Brown.
Well, by all accounts, Ezell was not impressed & made his displeasure known to interim BOC Chair Linda Hays who made her displeasure known to the members of the BOC along w/ several others on an late night email she sent out.
Madam Chair Linda Hays
In that email, the main thing that Hays was complaining about was how the County Manager's office had been separated out from the BOC as its own line-item. This was done, apparently, for accounting purposes & seems to many to be the way it should be done; however, the Chair, in her "own"* words, certainly didn't think so. But this change had already been discussed for quite some time & was that way in the initial proposed budget.
And remember. This went out late Tuesday night after the budget meeting had ended when it seemed as if a consensus had been reached & everyone seemed to be on the same page.
However, some are thinking that the real problem were to cuts to the Sheriff & that's what ultimately caused the pushback.
To me, that seems fairly obvious.
*many who've read the email are certain that Madam Chair did NOT write it
The Budget Situation
The initial proposed budget, as it usually is every year, was basically a joke. We see this every time.
Regardless, those numbers are always whittled down & additional cuts made, and they're almost always heavy on the biggest line items.
Plus, as I understand it, there were unspent funds that the Sheriff still had on hand.
If we're trying to get serious about taxpayer relief, we've got to have responsible & disciplined spending.
To that point...
Good Work If You Can Get It: WTC still Ridin' the NCSO Gravy Train
And not to bury the lede here, but, yeah, okay maybe a little (I will be doing a dedicated piece on this later), as TPC has written about a few times & as recently as last year, Sheriff Ezell Brown is sending a lot of money to former caustic county attorney William Thomas "Tommy" Craig, Esq (WTC) every single year.
$2.5 million
over the last 9 years on record going back to when Craig was first fired as the County Attorney.
Here the last several years, that annual amount has been growing to now over $350K per year.
After FY 2025 is officially official, it'll be right at $3 million.
It has been documented by several that this amount of spending for legal services by a Sheriff of the county the size of Newton, is absolutely OUT OF CONTROL!
Talking about irresponsible spending, let's look at money spent on overtime by the Sheriff.
An amount that used to always be a few hundred thousand dollars per year has completely exploded the last several years due to the fact that - as I understand it - the NCSO hasn't been properly staffed in years. Not because they don't have the funds (they do). Not because they're not paying competitive wages (they are). As I've been told on very good authority, it's because folks don't want to work at the NCSO. That, presumably, they don't want to work for Ezell. That there is "a culture problem."
Let's look at the numbers for overtime the last few years:
FY2024: $2.7 million
FY2023: $2.1 million
FY 2022: $1.5 million
Just crazy...
And a quick add-on:
Former Tax Commish Marcus Jordan's LLC is now receiving $5,500 per month from Ezell for, *checks notes*, data analysis.
And who did Marcus Jordan utilize as legal counsel when he was Tax Commissioner?
If you said WTC, you're a winner!
The Rub
While we know that spending is irresponsible throughout the entirety of Newton County's government, we know it is especially so for the Sheriff's Office & Jail Operations w/ a combined proposed budget of over $35 million.
That's the behemoth. That's where the money has got to be saved.
We know there's going to be tax increase. That's obvious. What The People are wanting is to get that increase decreased as much as possible.
But now, it's time for the sobering reality.
As many have surmised, there does certainly seem to be an alliance between our Interim Char, the Sheriff & WTC.
Unless the revised budget has 4 of the 5 members of the BOC on board, then that means Linda holds the veto power on any 3-2 vote.
Best,
- MBM