The Chattooga County Grand Jury met on Monday of this week and issued a presentment regarding the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Department that was based on erroneous financial numbers supplied by the Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Everett stated in today’s edition of The Summerville News that the numbers he supplied to the grand jury were hastily compiled and did contain inaccuracies.   

Earlier this week Chattooga County Commissioner Jason Winters told AM 1180 Chattooga County Radio that he disagreed with the Sheriff’s numbers regarding money the county had received from the state for housing inmates, as well as payments from the towns of Trion and Summerville for housing inmates.  The numbers that the grand jury used in their presentment were quoted verbatim from the Sheriff’s Department and were not the result of any research into financial records by the grand jury. 

Sheriff Everett has instituted a new policy at the jail that requires inmates to purchase stamps from the jail commissary which has cut down on the amount of postage being used by inmates, but Commissioner Winters disagreed with the amount of money that was saved this year by the new policy. The numbers issued by the grand jury showed a savings of over $30,000 in postage; however, Winters stated that the county’s records show “no where near that amount of money being spent last year on postage by inmates.”