When people think of sheriffs, they likely picture what they see in the movies, i.e., a community police leader patrolling the streets and solving crime. But this conception doesn’t always match the actual role of sheriffs in the commonwealth, at least not most of the time.
Sheriffs are one of a handful of historical elected officials at the county level in Kentucky. Every county in the commonwealth has one, but their duties may not correspond to the popular conception of a sheriff or to the duties of sheriffs in other states. What’s more, the three Northern Kentucky sheriffs’ departments vary a good deal in their structures and the work they do.
Let’s start with what they have in common first. All sheriffs serve four-year terms and have no term limits. In fact, many sheriffs can occupy their seats for long periods of time if they’re popular: Boone County’s former Sheriff Mike Helmig, for instance, served as the county sheriff for nearly thirty years. Former Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn served as the sheriff for 26 years. Campbell County Sheriff Mike Jensen was first elected in 2015.
If a sheriff dies, resigns, retires or is removed from the post before the term is up, the county judge/executive appoints a replacement to serve out the remainder of the term. There is no legal requirement in Kentucky for a candidate to have a law enforcement background to run for sheriff.
In spite of their cultural associations, most sheriffs’ primary duties do not focus on patrolling and other workaday law enforcement activities. While they may take part in those duties if needed, if you call 911 in Northern Kentucky, the officer who responds will likely come from a municipal department, rather than the sheriff’s office (unless you’re in Boone County; we’ll get to that). In fact, Kenton County and Campbell County both have their own county police departments that operate independently of the sheriffs.
Instead, sheriffs’ primary duties focus on property tax collection, court security and serving court processes like subpoenas, summons and court orders, including protective orders. Sheriffs (or their proxies) also sit as voting members of county boards of election, perform vehicle inspections for driver’s license applications and provide consumer protection services like scam warnings. Finally, Campbell and Kenton Counties share a combined SWAT team, the current CEO of which is Campbell County Sheriff Mike Jansen.
As an aside, sheriffs and county jails are politically separate in Kentucky, unlike some other states. Jailers are in their own elected positions, although the two institutions may work together.
The Boone County Sheriff’s Office is a bit of an exception. Unlike the other two counties, it is a full service law enforcement agency. The Sheriff’s Office officially merged with the now-defunct Boone County Police Department in 2001 under the tutelage of former Sheriff Helmig. By the end of the merger, the old county police department was completely absorbed into the sheriff’s department, which is now one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the commonwealth.
Today, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office handles not only patrol duties but also court transport, financial and cyber crime investigations, crime scene investigations, cold cases, a SWAT team and a large training center, complete with a gun range and a broken-down cruiser that trainees can use to practice traffic stops and other situations involving vehicles.
Mergers of this kind are rare and require buy-in from the departments involved, the broader community, and the county government, not to mention a renovation of financial structures.
Boone County Sheriff Les Hill and Campbell County Sheriff Jansen are both running unopposed this year, but that is not the case in Kenton County. There will be a Republican primary in May between current Sheriff and former Fort Mitchell Mayor Jude Hehman and Republican challenger Larry Shelton. Whoever wins the primary will then face off against Democratic challenger and former Newport Police Chief Tom Collins, who will not appear on the May ballot.
Hehman was appointed as sheriff following the retirement of former Sheriff Korzenborn last year. Hehman does not have a background in law enforcement but has had a long political and business career. He has successfully secured endorsements from Korzenborn, as well as the county’s prosecutors (which are also elected positions).
Hehman, in his conversations with LINK nky, discussed some of the misconceptions around the sheriff’s seat and some of its challenges.
“I’m required to staff the the court, the Justice Center, with a certain amount [of deputies],” Hehman said in early April, “and they’ve just now increased that. As a mayor or as a business owner, I could come up with ways to create revenue. As a sheriff’s office, there’s no creating revenue. My revenue is based on fees that I collect.”
Hehman said that in the short time he’s been sheriff, he’s not only had to build out the staffing of the justice center but also had to update the office’s computer software, which he characterized as “obsolete.” The Sheriff’s Office’s current budget is about $7.5 million. Based on the current demands of the office and its financial structure, Hehman described the line he had to walk as “tight.”
Both Shelton and Collins are running on a platform of expanding the role of the Sheriff’s Office. Unlike Hehman, they both have law enforcement backgrounds. Shelton worked for the Kentucky State Police and is currently an attorney.
Shelton’s platform is arguably more ambitious; it includes a large real-time crime center (with the help of the other two counties), essentially a network of coordinated, computer-interfaced security cameras that can feed live information to local departments. Louisville has a similar system. He also wanted to expand the department’s role in investigating scams and change the shift structure of the deputies to work two 12-hour shifts on and two shifts off, which he said would allow deputies to have a better work-life balance.
“I would like to see the sheriff’s department evolve,” Shelton said. “I look at Boone County and the other counties–they’re actual police officers.”
Collins, on the other hand, believed the Sheriff’s Office should have a dedicated civil disturbance team to better manage events with large crowds (whether they’re political events or otherwise) and train other departments. He also wanted to create a missing persons’ team.
“What I understand, it [the Sheriff’s Office] needs a lot of adjusting, and there’s a lot of programs and a lot of things that they could be doing and should be doing as assistance to other agencies,” Collins said.
Are such expansions worth locating within the Sheriff’s Office? Whether whoever is in the office can pull them off, and whether they can pay for it, are among the questions voters will need to consider when they hit the ballot box later this year.