St. Mary Sheriff's Office is at full strength

St. Mary Parish Sheriff Gary Driskell told a St. Mary Chamber audience Wednesday about good things happening in the office: plans for a new building in Centerville, new vehicles, a commitment to community policing and a new way to handle citizen complaints.
And Driskell, speaking at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City, talked about a fact that might make him the envy of law enforcement agencies across the state: He has a full staff.
The St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office found new deputies hard to find in the aftermath of COVID. The office wasn’t alone.
When Morgan City Police Chief James F. Blair announced his retirement in 2022, he warned the City Council that his department had lost 40 employees over the previous three years, a turnover rate Blair called unsustainable. Morgan City’s answer was a half-cent sales tax for police and firefighter pay and training, which voters passed overwhelmingly in April 2023.
The Sheriff’s Office has imposed no new taxes, Driskell said Wednesday. But after the meeting, Driskell said the Sheriff’s Office staff is at about 150. The office still lacks three or four corrections deputies, but it has hired more patrol officers than it needed, which allowed the sheriff to transfer deputies into the detective and narcotic sections.
Driskell pointed to education incentives as one key. College graduates earn more, and deputies attending college can earn up to $750 a semester for studying subjects related to law enforcement.
“The better educated our deputies are,” Driskell told the audience, “the better off we all are.”
There is also extra pay for longevity on the job. “They’re the ones with all the knowledge, so we want to keep them there.”
The office also offers extra pay for deputies with some special duty assignments, including field training, defensive tactics instruction, the special response team, firearms instruction, the dive team and operations/negotiation.
The recent and planned improvements also include:
—Forty new vehicles in the last 3-1/2 years. Driskell said he reluctantly bought two gray patrol SUVs because that was the only color available at the time. Since then, he said, the color and the striping on the vehicles have become popular, and the office acquired more.
—Body cams and dash cams. The newest dash cams not only record video but scan license plates so deputies can be alerted if the vehicle is wanted.
—The new building in Centerville will combine the motor pool and the technical, narcotic and patrol sections in one place.
—Driskell hopes to be able to put automated external defibrillators, used to treat people undergoing cardiac arrest, in all patrol vehicles.
—The sheriff is working with South Louisiana Community College to make high school equivalency instruction to parish prisoners and, possibly, to offer training in welding.
“If they can get a skill, get certified, they’ll have a job waiting for them,” Driskell said.
—A new staffer in the Office of Special Services to handle citizen complaints. The staff, whom Driskell didn’t identify, is a 20-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a 19-year veteran of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
—Community policing. “I love it …,” Driskell said. “We have to do more of it.
“We can solve most cases if we get people involved.”
A lot of the focus here is on kids. Deputies go to local schools to compete with students in kickball and other sports.
There’s a Junior Deputy Academy in which 20 8- to 11-year-olds meet deputies with different responsibilities and see the equipment they use.
Some deputies weren’t excited about the idea. But “we had a blast,” Driskell said.
The Sheriff’s Office will have two Night Out Against Crime events. One is scheduled for Oct. 28 at the West St. Mary Civic Center. The other will be Oct. 29 at the Patterson Area Civic Center.
Driskell encouraged people at the Chamber luncheon to help by donating bicycles for prizes.