$602,000 Medical Cost for One Jail Prisoner | Eastern North Carolina Now

    During late September of last year I wrote an article complaining about a $346,000 medical bill for one prisoner held by Beaufort County. In that situation, Sheriff Coleman, and the County Manager Brian Alligood claimed they were not informed, they knew nothing because the prisoner wad housed out of county. Where I am from being dumb and uninformed is not an excuse for failure to do your job.

    Regardless of their protests, King Coleman has charge of all prisoners and the time and the County manager is responsible of all the money all the time. The third culprit are the county commissioners who are clue les and submissive.

    Same thing happened again, with the same prisoner. Only this time the bill was for $256,941.21 bringing the total to $602,000.. There is more yet to come. The invoice is for January. What about March and April? Are we looking at a million dollars? .Does the excuse dumb and uninformed work again? How much abuse do the taxpayers of Beaufort County have to take before they wake up and realize they are being bled to death by public officials who simply are not doing their job.

    There is more to it than these two bureaucrats. I raised the issue at a Beaufort County Commissioners meeting during late 2018 and got shot down. It seems the commissioners don't care.

    State law requires each county to provide emergency care only for all prisoners. Beaufort County goes beyond this. We have nurses hired for the jail. Coleman has purchased pills for AIDS patients at $100 per pill. Aids is not an emergency illness. County commissioners believe good medical care, better than you get, will cause the accused to change their ways.

    My request for the commissioners to institute a procedure to monitor prisoner medical cost on an individual basis. Those who are high risk or high cost could be released, put on ankle bracelets or moved on in some way to keep costs down. It is your tax money that pays for these medical costs.

    In this case the District Attorney came to the rescue. He did not know about the situation. Upon being informed, he made arrangements for the prisoner to be moved from under Beaufort County's care. It only took one telephone call.

    How much trouble is it for someone in the jail to call weekly about who is getting medical services when prisoners kept out of county. How much trouble is it for one of those two nurses to give a weekly report about high cost and high risk prisoners so something can be done.

    The simple truth is the Sheriff Coleman does not have a management plan. He has a plan for you to pay the bills. When irresponsible costs are incurred, they should be deducted from Coleman's budget. These fine caring, soft and fuzzy commissioners simply increase Coleman's budget and give the tax payers the bill.

    There is an incredible amount of waste in the Sheriff's Department. We, the county commissioners, hold the money. We treat Coleman like as if we are the wealthy parents of a very spoiled and immature child. We just keep shoveling the money.