Meggan Smith
Robbinsville – "Some of the things I may say may upset some of y'all; some of them, you might agree with; but frankly, I don't care."
With that opening statement, Chase Lancaster opened a proverbial can of worms at Tuesday's Graham County Board of Commissioners meeting.
A Republican candidate for one of the seats on the 2026 ballot himself, Lancaster began questioning the board about the low salaries being paid for starting positions at the Graham County Detention Center – later calling the $14 base rate "pathetic" – and asking where cuts made to the Graham County Sheriff's Office budget over the last several years has been re-directed.
"For the past few years, you have cut and cut the sheriff's department. It's time to stop," Lancaster said.
The detention center itself has been closed for several months, as crews have worked to remediate asbestos and lead-based paint that was detected inside the aging facility. Graham County has been forced to house all inmates at other agencies as a result. Detention staff have been utilizing a temporary office adjacent to the jail inside the Graham County Courthouse, which opened in 1942.
Graham County Project Manager Jason Marino said during his monthly report Tuesday that the remediation process is 55% complete, but Lancaster questioned how the facility would run after being re-opened some 20 minutes before Marino first spoke.
"Do you really think we can open the jail and keep officers for $14 an hour, when other counties like Swain County and Cherokee County are starting their officers off at $18, $19 an hour?," Lancaster asked. "Where do you think they're going to go? The only reason we have the officers that we do now is because they love supporting this county.
"These men and women have families. They have bills and they can't afford $14 an hour to start off at the jail."
Lancaster went on to claim that only 1-2 deputies were currently assigned to patrol the county at night, due to staffing issues. He later asked commission chair Meggan Smith about a proposition she presented at December's meeting, in which a new ¼-cent sales-tax referendum could be added to the November ballot.
"How do you expect the community to do that, when all you're wanting to do is raise taxes?," Lancaster said.
Smith pointed out that sales and property taxes differed greatly, to which Lancaster replied by noting the lower prices of fuel and groceries in neighboring counties.
"You do realize that the sales tax rate is not any less in Cherokee County, Jackson County, Swain County – any of the above," commissioner Natasha Williams chimed in. "They're not going to save on sales tax; they're going to save on groceries."
"You're still talking about increasing taxes, but everybody's pay is staying the same," Lancaster later said. "That's just going to make it more of a burden on them."
"How do you propose paying for these pay raises you're talking about, without raising taxes?," Williams responded. "Swain County has a larger tax base than us. Cherokee County has a larger tax base than us. That's how they afford to pay more money. How do you propose that we come up with the initial funds for a raise?
"How do you come up with the additional funds for overtime?," Lancaster responded.
Williams and Lancaster continued to chat back and forth about the matter, before Lancaster stated, "Ok, maybe the county would have more money if it stopped spending money on things that we want and use it for things that we need."
"I agree 100% with that," Smith immediately replied.
* Next week: "The boat" sparks a separate debate during the meeting. Also, a budget amendment ensures medical expenses are covered at the detention center.
Other news & notes
* Finance officer Stacy Carpenter noted that the county was required to provide a six-month, budget-to-actual report to the Local Government Commission's Unit Assistance List (UAL). The county's assigned commission coach – Tim Greene – said in an email that "everything looked good."
* RH CPAs Senior Audit Manager TD Hill informed Carpenter that the auditing firm would be on-site the week of Feb. 9, to continue work on the 2023-24 audit. At the November meeting, Hill told the board that the 2023-24 audit should be completed by the end of February, which would allow the 2024-25 audit to be fast-tracked and the current 2025-26 fiscal year audit to also be submitted before the end of the 2026 calendar year.