THOMASVILLE — Upon a request by the chief judge of the Southern Judicial Circuit, Thomas County commissioners are considering whether to reinstate county government’s community service worker program.

Judge Harry Jay Altman appeared before commissioners Tuesday — at the end of two days of budget hearings — to make the request.

The program, at a cost of about $30,000 annually, was nixed in the 2009 public works budget.

“I cannot begin to explain how important community service is,” Altman told the board.

Many probationers would rather spend weekends in jail than for their friends to see them picking up trash, Altman said. Community service helps reduce crime, he added.

“If that’s not my job, Mr. Chairman, I don’t know what is,” Altman told commission Chairman Josh Herring.

The judge said Thomasville government uses some community service workers, “but they’re not using enough.”

Glen Davis, who heads the judicial circuit probation program, said Thomasville uses 10 a week, while the county program put 30 to 40 probationers to work weekly.

Herring said cutting the program from the county budget was not only a money matter. County employees overseeing the program could not find out who was in charge of workers or when an offender’s sentenced ended.

“Plus, it was a money issue, too,” Herring said, adding that the overall community service program lacked supervision and order.

Davis said his agency documents community service work. “We do enforce it,” he explained.

Altman is sentencing many offenders to weekends in jail in lieu of the county community service program. Some are sentenced to 52 weekends in jail, while others receive from eight to 16 weekends.

Commissioner Moses Gross questioned the cost to county government of weekends in jail versus funding a community service program.

Capt. John Richards, Thomas County Sheriff’s Office chief of operations, said Tuesday the Thomas County Jail has averaged 40 weekender inmates monthly in recent months, or about 10 weekly.

“It costs $22.50 a day to house an inmate,” Richards said.

At $900 a month for 40 weekenders monthly, the cost is $10,800 a year, the officer explained.

“That amount is figured into our annual jail budget,” he added.

In past years, the jail has housed as many as 25 weekender inmates per weekend.

If a someone violates probation, they also go to jail.

Altman reminded commissioners of the cost for county crews to remove trash.

“We’ll take that into consideration,” Herring said.



Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 1820.