By Brian Wright
Casa Grande Dispatch
In the past two years, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu haven’t always seen eye-to-eye regarding the sheriff’s budget.
Babeu has consistently claimed he wasn’t provided funds for fuel and overtime, while the supervisors have admonished the sheriff for exceeding his budget.
But a much different mood permeated the room at the board’s Wednesday meeting, when supervisors voted unanimously to approve a $120,180 transfer from the county’s general fund to cover overtime expenses in the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office adult detention unit.
A Nov. 14 memo from Babeu stated two reasons for the additional money.
First was to devote deputies and other resources to the town of Superior because of a need for additional law enforcement. The second reason, Babeu said, was continuous overtime expended for the “security of a dangerous felon who has been hospitalized since July of 2012.”
