 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name is Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Tom Wagner. And we're pleased to have you join us today. As you know, every month we strive to focus on a different department, department head, their roles and responsibilities. And today we are just tickled for you to, if you haven't met him already, the new sheriff of Sheboygan County, Corey Rastler. Welcome. Thank you. I can't tell you how pleased we are that Corey was appointed by the governor into this role. He's been with the Sheriff's Department for 27 years and I've known him for nearly 20. And we just feel so good about his role and the job he does with the law enforcement community. And we're looking forward to getting to know him a little bit better today. So please join us in getting to know Corey, roles and responsibilities of the Sheriff's Department. And let's start with yourself, Corey. Tell us a little bit about your background. Sure. I'm originally from just out of Sheboygan County on the Royal Keele area. I grew up on a farm with my parents. I have two wonderful parents, Fred and Judy. They, I assume, raised me right, obviously in making it to where I've made it so far and really instilled the really great work ethic that I have and my personality skills, everything I get from my parents. So growing up in Keele, I went to Keele High School. So I'm an alum, 1988 alum of Keele High School. I went to three and a half years of high school, got out early, graduated three and a half years. I went to Maureen Park Technical College in Fontalac. Only stayed there for a year and a half out of my two years for the associate degree and graduated early. From there, I was just turning 19 when I was hired at the Keele Police Department as a dispatcher part-time and a part-time road officer. From there, I had actually some difficulty getting a job being just over 18 and early 19. So I was hired by the Columbia County Sheriff's Department near Madison. And I stayed down there for a year before opportunities opened up back home again in Sheboygan County. So from there, I started as a road deputy in 1991. I had really great experiences, great people I worked with, great supervisors, a mentor of mine, Mike Helmke, eventually went on to be sheriff. Really had a great nine or ten year career on the road. Saw some opportunities to promote into a corporal position. And then from there, I had an opportunity to be a detective for several years. Gained a lot of knowledge working in the drug unit. Drug unit afforded me a lot of opportunities, a lot of freedom, a lot of ability to work with different people, different agencies throughout the state that really have benefited my career as we move forward. And an opportunity to take over and be the lieutenant of the detectives. And eventually in 2006 was promoted to captain of patrol. And in 2015 took over as a dual role with the captain of the criminal investigations division. And Sheriff Preby announced he was going to retire early. And it was a goal of mine to be the sheriff. So I initially thought that the election in 2018 was going to be my first opportunity. But the appointment for the governor came early. And so I worked hard and strived to get everything done that we needed to do to get the application in and the interview process. And I had a wonderful interview with the governor and obviously received the appointment. So here we are today. Yeah, yeah, it's a great story. And talk about a tremendous resume and background. There's, you know, so much about the sheriff's department and the people that work there and the good work that happens in the community as a whole. Tom and I both sent letters of support to the governor, as you know, as did our area legislators. There was a lot of enthusiasm for your interest in being appointed. And I know we've talked in the past about possibly you being sheriff one day. So we're just very proud and pleased to see you appointed and look forward to working with you more closely going forward. You started off by mentioning your parents. And Chairman Wagner and I both attended the swearing-in ceremony with a lot of your other friends and co-workers. And one of the more moving, if not the most moving, swearing-in functions that I've ever attended. And it was short and sweet, but you selected one of our newer judges and just touch briefly on what that day meant to you. Sure. Judge Hoffman had been very supportive in helping me from the get-go as far as we're to initially find how to apply for the opening, as well as the process in general. He's also been very supportive of our other swearing-ins that we do for new officers. So I felt it was important to see if he would be willing to do it and he was honored. I was honored to have my parents there, honored to have all my friends and family there. And like I said, just a very special day and very emotional as we talked about getting to the point in life where, like I said, you value every day that you have with your parents or your family and relatives and stuff like that. So just a great, wonderful day overall. It sure was. It sure was. So 27 years with the Sheriff's Department, you're into your second week of Sheriff. What do you see as your key challenges moving forward? Well, you're right. I have 10 days in, so I'm very experienced and ready to go. But a lot of challenges I see coming forward are as we'll probably talk more in the future about the jail and really monitoring the jail population. The jail population is something that's important to me. I know it's important to the county board. I monitor it every day looking at how the spikes are and how we're moving up and down and really looking at whether or not we need to expand or not, whether we need to look at other alternatives and different programs coming up and what we can do to benefit and try to keep our offenders out of jail and back on the right track. So that's one challenge I see coming forward. I think another real challenge, which for Sheboygan County, it's a good challenge to have, but it's a bad challenge. We're very blessed right now with one of the lowest jobless rates in the county, both the county board, the governor. Everyone has done an excellent job of really trying to get people back to work. And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing to have. Now when you're an employer and you're looking back and trying to find quality employees and you see who you're competing with, I think that's going to be one of our biggest challenges. We evaluate our employment every six months just to see whether we need to start another hiring process. And in doing so, we really scrutinize the applications we're getting and really have to kind of look at the qualifications that we're using. We're competing against a lot of wonderful local partners for me that are also looking for employees and some of them are taking our employees from us. And we're taking some from them. But you have to look at some of the roles that we do, whether it's a deputy or a secretary, a dispatcher, a correctional officer. You have to look at the role that we're doing and how Sheboygan County is going to attract and retain those employees. So I think that's going to be our biggest challenge coming forward as far as looking to try to really attract quality employees, looking at different ways to retain them. And we really stick a lot of financial money into the hiring and the retaining. When you look at our training phases for a lot of different jobs that we have, they're anywhere from ten weeks to three months. And if you look at what a wage for those employees are over that period of time, it's a huge investment. So we take it very seriously in the hiring process. We want the best employees for Sheboygan County that we can train and get to the point where we're comfortable with them working on their own. But there comes times when you have to cut ties as well. That's more of something that's a mutual agreement. When we're not getting enough employees to fill the positions and having to repost and compete against a lot of other businesses, that's really where the real struggle is going to be in the future. And again, we look at some different recruiting tactics and we look for the support of the county board. They've been very supportive in other divisions and departments of looking at creative ways to try to lure employees. And as we know, we're in good company because Tom and I tour some of the businesses across the county and we have so many wonderful businesses and local owners and they do so many good things for the community, but it's pretty much the same theme we hear throughout as recruiting and retaining good employees. And as you said, whether it's the Sheriff's Department Corrections, our Rocky Null Healthcare Center and CNAs, social workers, accountants, where we used to get dozens of applicants, maybe hundreds of applicants, now it might be 10 or 12 or four or five. I mean, it's really a different situation, so we're all struggling with that. And the Detention Center, as you mentioned, the last thing we want to do is spend millions of dollars to expand our Detention Center, but we are nearing capacity and hopefully we can focus on alternatives more than building, but another key challenge ahead of us. So you helped a little bit. You obviously shared some insight about yourself and you talked about the Detention Center. That's one responsibility of the Sheriff's Department, but a big picture if someone's watching today and they really don't have any feel for what the Sheriff's Department does, what are the key areas of responsibility? We have a lot. Obviously, we really take anything from the call that initially comes into our Dispatch Center. And as we talked about earlier with jobs, you can look at each one of the areas I talk about as several jobs involved with it. And you can also look at kind of rolling it out as how the Department works in general. We have a Dispatch Center that we have approximately 20 dispatchers and supervisors that are working within that communication center. As you probably have talked about in previous conversations with others, we have a Joint Dispatch Center now with the city. So we're working with all the police agencies as one Dispatch Center. And so everything kind of comes into our Dispatch Center and then we move it into our either a road deputy. We have 39 road deputies. Then we have several other deputies that work in the courts as part of our civil process division. And then we have a criminal investigation division where we employ approximately seven detectives along with supervisors. And we also have a multi-jurisdictional drug unit where we have other agencies supplying officers along with the Sheriff's Department to help combat some of the drug issues that we have. And then we have a support services where all of our clerical staff work, whether it's filing some of the paperwork that the deputies are doing, making it different arrangements for some of the jail and correctional facilities, whether it's accounting. Everyone that we're responsible for when we get to the correction site basically has some type of accounting, whether they have a canteen where they're able to provide money to a service where they can buy things from while they're incarcerated with us or whether they're on Huber law and they're paying some Huber fees in order to continue on with that process. So we go into the correction staff, which is our largest area. We have around 70 employees in our correctional staff. So we have 194 total employees. We employ part-time officers as well that really have helped us financially as far as the financial impact and still providing a service that we can transport inmates back and forth at a much lesser cost and do a lot of other services that before were possibly done at overtime. So we have, like I said, 194 employees, all of which play a key role in the day-to-day functions of the Sheriff's Department. And to put that in perspective, we have 19 departments, about 840 employees, about a $150 million budget. And we always fondly refer to our big four being the Sheriff's Department, Health and Human Services, Transportation and Rocky Knoll. And last question before I turn it over to Tom. So what is the Sheriff's total budget for supporting those staff and the good work that you do? We have around a $20 million budget. $17.9 million approximately is budget where we are requesting that money. And then another roughly $2.1 million comes from revenue, comes from other fees that are collected. $17 million property tax levy, and $3 million or so with federal or state resources. Correct. Thank you, Corey. And of course your operation is 24-7 too that people have to remember that relative to, I think people don't always think of that in that regard, but whether it's Christmas or Easter, your people are out there. We have people out there, like I said, 24-7. We can't close. If the weather is bad and no one can get out, we can't close. We have to do the best we can. We have wonderful partnerships and working relationships with our other departments, the highway department. When we talk about the snowstorm, and we're hoping that this year we have none. So we don't have to worry about it. So does a great snow. Exactly, yes. But on large snowstorms, it's not unrealistic to see a snowplow leading a squad or an ambulance to get someplace that we have to get to. So those are all partnerships that we talk about with other departments. Right, and they kind of led right into my question of building partnerships. You want to talk about that at all? Sure, I think one of the things, I don't want to say it's my strong point, but one of the things that really benefited me and some things I left out in my original part is I was also the chief in Cascade and a part-time police department. And that really had helped me build the bridges and the partnerships with the other law enforcement agencies, the fire chiefs, the fire departments, EMS, along with the captain's position at the sheriff's department. Really allowing me to work with our health and human services when it comes to some of the endangered children and the drug issues and the different things we have as far as helping with the transports of the juveniles. All the way over to the highway department, as we talked about, we're not going to get anywhere without them in that snowstorm. And when it comes to the safety of their workers, they're not going to get anywhere without our help and try to provide them some safety while they're out working on the highway. So those partnerships, whether it's departmental, other EMS or police, and then we really dive into the public sector. I mean, the relationships that I've really had a fortune to have with local businesses and community members and county board members and other board members from different communities and the ability to go and talk at the town board meetings and really try to work on the issues that we have in the community and keeping them informed. Really, like I said, it's kind of really my springboard to having the opportunity that I did and being able to be a pointed sheriff. When we talk about the letters that were written, there were so many letters written on behalf, whether it's the district attorney's office or the county administrator's office, other county and town board and village board members that wrote letters in support. Like I said, it all goes into that relationship building that you have. And it's one of those things where, as I talked about with the highway department, you hope that you don't need it. But boy, when you need it, it sure is nice to have that you can pick up the phone and call and say, hey, Greg, on a personal basis, I really need this. And he knows that I'm not going to call, unless it's important that we need to get this done or we need to have a different role. Working with the police chief, whether it's in any of the jurisdictions, more specifically the city, having a good working relationship with him, again, trying to accommodate everything that we need. We look at it as, I'm fortunate, all the cities and municipalities are in the county of Sheboygan. So we have jurisdiction everywhere. So if we can help and we can partner with them to do the different projects that's really beneficial and really makes things a lot easier. Because everyone pays taxes. Whether you're the city or in the county. And I know they count on you in that regard, in any instances. And you can't put a price tag on building relationships. Exactly. It's worth an awful lot. Can you talk a little bit about expectations for your department staff? Yeah, we have a new mission statement. The mission statement is to protect and serve citizens of our community by reducing fear of crime and disorder. It's kind of old school. For anyone that's involved in law enforcement, it's kind of back to the roots of where we came from. It's very easy to remember. That helps for my employees. You don't want something that's too complicated. And we really want to instill the values on our employees of professionalism, respect, integrity, dedication, and the employee value. And if you look at those, they all spell pride. And that's the key thing I guess I'm looking for in my employees. And that is if they're proud of themselves at work, at home, and in the community, that's going to resonate through to their actual job. And I have high expectations for employees. I think that me as myself, I'm a worker. And I instill that on them that I don't tolerate people who aren't workers as well. And we have a responsibility. The taxpayers of Sheboyin County pay our wages. There's expectations on there we have. And I fully feel that we need to fulfill those expectations. Thank you. I know you have some additional funding sometimes that's provided to the Sheriff's Department that offsets some of the budget relative to what the County Board provides. You want to talk about some of that? Sure. We kind of talked a little bit about the funding for our correctional facility. We get some jail revenue that's brought in. There's a certain revenue off of any arrest or citation. Some money comes back to the county for jail assessment. The jail has a lot of different programs that people pay for. You pay to be on Huber Law and get out. A portion of your check is taken off to help pay for your state. We get into a lot of village and town contracts. And then we've really tried to do a lot through state grants and other grants that are available. Right now we receive $100,000 in grant money for additional traffic enforcement, mainly for the State Highway 23. I'll call it a project, but obviously it's a project that's on hold. So we spend a lot of time out there. So any of the viewers that are watching should know that State Highway 23 between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac has really been a dangerous highway over the years. And we're focusing our time in conjunction with a joint task force with Fond du Lac County. We're really trying to put in perspective that we want people to obey the traffic laws. We want you to kind of take a couple minutes extra and just breathe before you get on 23 and know that if there's going to be violations, we're going to enforce them. And we have a lot of success out there. I've seen your people out there and I can't tell you how important I think that is because Adam and I both tried to move that project forward as best we can. It's in federal court at this point. It is a dangerous road and it's rather obvious. And that's just another example of how there's money which is through a state grant. So there's recognition that it is dangerous and we need to do something. And the nice part about that is that grant actually came about basically at a brainstorming session at one of our meetings where myself and one of the other captains from Fond du Lac kind of looked at each other and I said, hey, how about a task force as long as the state is looking at other areas they want to fund. And it initially started out with 40,000 and now we're able to use some of that money to fund other agencies for issues that they have whether it's in the city of Sheboygan, Plymouth or Elkhart Lake or wherever it may be for what America and different events. We're actually able to put extra bodies out to try and make it a safer event for everybody coming and going. It definitely helps. You talked a little bit about, I know you have contracts with some of the other locals who don't have a local police department. You want to talk about those a little bit? Sure. We're very fortunate to have great partnerships and working relationships with many of the villages. Usberg, Cedar Grove, Random Lake, Town of Holland, Glen Bula. So in doing so, some of these other agencies aren't necessarily big enough to support having their own police department. When you look at financially, a squad car is anywhere between 50 and 70,000 to actually set up and start out with. Now you're looking at paying the insurance for the officers and paying for insurance for the vehicle and equipping it and equipping the officer. So we're able to take a portion of the day and they provide us funding to send an officer down there for two or three hours a day. In some instances, it's 19 or 20 hours a month. But it's an extra little bit of patrol that you get, extra little bit of ordinance enforcement to kind of take care of some of the small things that really benefits both places. It's obviously money that we're able to generate, but it also provides that police services for that local jurisdiction, which is very important because like I said, a lot of them can't really afford it and they really want that extra protection. Absolutely. You want to talk about any of the challenges that are escalating within your department? Well, I think some of the challenges that we're looking at, especially when it comes for the citizens of Sheboygan County, the opioid abuse and deaths are something that are on everyone's mind. To put it kind of in context, Sheboygan County this year is going to finish with eight or nine fatalities depending upon how some of them are actually designated as we get to the end of the year. And that's an average and that's pretty average for us, a county our size really has a lot of miles traveled. So if you really kind of took into account thinking how many people are going to come through Sheboygan County, maybe 100,000 vehicles on a daily basis or so and how many people are fatally injured, it's really a small comparison. But when you look at how many people are in Sheboygan County and how many people die of some type of drug overdose, we really get to the point where we see the problem. We're probably going to finish 2017 with over 20 overdose deaths in the county. We've already had at least one or two this year already and we're only a few days into it. Yeah, I read some in the paper and sometimes some people will put it within their obituary and others will not and other times unfortunately you can read through it. It is a growing issue. Well thank you, I'll turn it back to Adam I think at this point. Yeah, and I'm glad you raised that because we only have a couple of minutes remaining but that's been a key emphasis of Chairman Tom Wagner and the County Board, our Health and Human Services Department which is now a drug and alcohol court and we're providing more services than ever before for this but the law enforcement angle is so important and not only your department but the city of Sheboygan. They've done a lot to raise awareness but it continues to be a battle and that helps put it in perspective when you talk about seven or eight deaths due to traffic accidents and over 20 because of taking opioids. It's a sad situation. We need to continue to focus on it. Right back where we talked about with the partnerships. It's the partnership with Health and Human Services. It's the partnership with the other departments. It's the department with the state all looking for different ways and trying to not reinvent the wheel for something that's working in the final act. Let's use that too. Well Corey it is an absolute pleasure to have you here 10 days into your service as sheriff on our TVA program the first of 2018. We're glad that you could join us and if you have any questions or suggestions please don't hesitate to contact Sheriff Racler or a member of his team and speaking of your team I often think of Inspector Rasu because obviously Inspector Rasu is the right hand of the sheriff helped with the transition between former Sheriff Todd Paribi and now current Sheriff Corey Racler and the inspector sometimes I think is one of those on-sung heroes there that helps a lot with the administration what the Sheriff Department does but a shout out to Jim and all of the staff at the Sheriff's Department who are helping make good things happen in this community and do so many things that many of us will never be aware of to make sure the community is safe and a wonderful place to live and raise a family and have some fun our dispatchers in particular that whole combined dispatch and how effectively that was implemented at the Sheriff's Department on Corey and certainly Inspector Rasu and Christie de Blay and so many other people there so thank you for that, thank you for joining us next month we're going to have Kayla Clinton here from Rocky Knoll one of our newer department heads as well Kayla just started about six months ago is doing a tremendous job at our Rocky Knoll Healthcare Center you can get to know her and learn more about Rocky Knoll but until then thank you for joining us be well