MARLBORO COUNTY — During the first county council meeting of the new year, members of the board heard a presentation from Marlboro County Sheriff Larry McNeil detailing where the sheriff’s office is in terms of the county detention center, staff hires and needed equipment. The sheriff also provided insight into the county’s numbers on crime and drug related crime.

Budget and staffing

Starting with the budget for his office, McNeil shared the Marlboro County Sheriff’s Office had a starting budget of $2,974,635 as of July 1, 2025, and his office has used roughly 49% of its budget to date.

“So, we are actually somewhat below budget right now based on where we were in the past six months. Staff wise this past year, the sheriff’s office hired 20 staff,” said McNeil, continuing, “We’ve lost 12 in the process from that. We started out with 14 officers.”

The sheriff explained the reason for this stemmed from staff salary needs.

“At this particular time, we are right now three short- we just hired two people hopefully this week,” announced McNeil, explaining, “Both of them are certified officers. Beginning of the year, we had a hard time getting folks staffed because of salaries.”

The sheriff said a hiring freeze was put in place for two positions to combat this issue.

“What we ended up having to do was freeze two positions — and we took those salaries and [gave them to] the other 34 people we had working, which helped us be able to retain people, but also to hire some more people,” said McNeil, clarifying that the two frozen positions were not lost, just temporarily frozen. He added, “People that we lost — most of them resigned to go to other places where they could make more money.”

McNeil next detailed a simple solution his team crafted for helping the sheriff’s office bypass its hiring freeze; hiring civilians trained to be class three officers, because they do go out and interact with the public.

“We did something probably somewhat unusual. We have three staff members that are civilians,” said McNeil, mentioning in particular his office’s victim advocate and prevention officers.

“What we decided to do with them is make them class three prevention officers because if they go out into the public, which they have to do, we would actually have to put an officer with them. Making them class three officers allows them to go to the academy and get certified as a class three, so we don’t now have to send anybody out with them,” explained the sheriff.

Discussing an example of how this plan works for his staff in real time, McNeil cited the workload of his office’s victim advocate.

“The total number of contacts that she had was 547 on an average per month of 46. So that means she is having to go out twice a day and leave the office to go see a victim or have a victim come to her office. That is a lot of work. Had we not moved her position to a class three, that means every time she went, I would have had to have an officer with her to go out,” said McNeil.

Detention Center

“We started out with 20 [employees], and we are now at 19. They are pretty stable,” praised the sheriff, adding, “Again, it is a salary situation with them, but we have been able to in the past year get their salaries from $24,000 up to $31,000,” said McNeil, celebrating the $7,000 increase.

McNeil further praised detention staff for enduring poor ventilation and mold caused by structural deficiencies.

“I appreciate the council’s effort in going forward with- architect [to] come in and take a look and see where our problems are. They were here over a week ago- based on what they found out so far that they are determined there are longstanding structural deficiencies, poor ventilation, and condensation problems are significant contributors to the mold in the building. Detention center staff are working diligently with the engineers to correct these issues and mitigate any problems,” said the sheriff.

McNeil mentioned Thomas and Sutton surveyors assessed the drainage concerns and determined the land the detention center is situated on has a high moisture content, a breeding ground for potential flooding and other moisture related concerns.

“The exhaust fans are not functioning, and the existing drainage system is substandard,” said McNeil, adding that as of the meeting, he has no estimate for the cost of the project.

Vehicles and other needed equipment

When it comes to police vehicles, McNeil says his office is at a deficit.

“With vehicles, we are assigned 40 vehicles for the sheriff’s office, and keep in mind we have 36 people working, so that keeps us kind of short,” said McNeil.

He further lamented the fact that the patrol fleet currently has seven inoperable vehicles on its force. McNeil pointed out the majority of his agency’s vehicles are over 100,000 miles, leading to maintenance issues.

Additionally, the sheriff mentioned his staff needs MDT technology in all its cars, which is a computer system installed inside patrol vehicles to assist law enforcement in quickly obtaining information or entering data. This system usually consists of a keyboard, printer, and display screen.

Serving papers and calls for service

Sheriff McNeil says his office needs additional staff to fully meet the county’s warrant serving needs. He says his staff was tasked with serving roughly 2,400 warrants and only 1,652 of them were actually served, or 69%, in 2023. The following year in 2024, McNeil says his team was assigned 2,528, and of those warrants 1,779 were served. In 2025, the sheriff’s office has so far been assigned 2,500 papers to serve and has thus far served approximately 86% or 2,321.

“We have to have more people. Right now, we only have two processing papers positions,” said the Sheriff.

Once again highlighting the resourcefulness of his office, McNeil announced staff is assigning student resource officers [SRO’s] to assist in serving papers when school is not in session.

“It gives them something extra to do and they have been a big help in getting those things done. That has been really helpful for us,” said McNeil.

According to the sheriff, the numbers show a recent and marked increase in calls for service from both McColl and Clio.

McNeil said McColl’s service calls increased from 204 in 2024 to a whopping 719 in 2025, and Clio’s increased from 140 to 175 over the same period.

Some of the reasons for the increase in calls, according to the sheriff, include 77 aggravated assaults, seven robberies, 10 criminal sexual conducts, three arsons, 87 incidents of burglary, 63 drug violations, 15 weapons violations, 30 domestic violence calls, and 187 non-aggravated assaults.

Drug overdose and crime

According to the sheriff, there were 79 calls reporting overdose in the county over the past year. Of those 79, 10 resulted in fatalities. He added that according to reports issued by EMS, or based on OD Mapping, there were 92 suspected overdoses where EMS responded, and the sheriff’s office did not. McNeil pointed out that while deputies do not go out for every overdose call, EMS does and keeps track through OD Mapping.

“Overdose incidents increased from 19 in 2024 to 30 in 2025, representing a 57.9% increase. This increase highlights the continued and escalating impact on substance abuse within the community,” said McNeil, adding, “Fentanyl related arrests increased from eight to fifteen, an 87.5% increase.”

McNeil went on to remind board members, and the community at large, that narcotic related offenses are on the rise nationally. To combat this issue in Marlboro County, the sheriff emphasized that one of the most effective ways the community can help is by reporting any known drug-related activity to local authorities, particularly anyone selling illegal substances.

As the issue is a personal passion for McNeil and his staff, to further staunch the flow of narcotics into the county, the sheriff’s office is conducting opioid awareness seminars in the schools and out in the communities in hopes of reaching people where they are.

“Our biggest problem has to do with economics. When you don’t have jobs, you reach out to other places and do other things to find some type of relief. That has a lot to do with the problem- selling is a way of making money,” lamented the sheriff.

McNeil pointed out one problem often leads to another, with many users stealing and committing other crimes to afford their habit. He said the overall narcotics arrest rate increased from 86 to 100 or was a 16.3% increase.

“[This demonstrates] again as I said, sustained investigative and patrol emphasis on control substance violations and warrant arrests showed a substantial increase from 197 warrants that we serve to 268, reflecting a 36% increase of rise indicating expanded warrant service activities and proactive accountability measures. Everything I’m saying shows that we are working more, we are working hard with less of the same number than we already had.”

Summing it up

“Collectively this data demonstrates a clear increase in workload enforcement intensity and public safety demands between 2024 and 2025. Believe me, we are not getting any breaks, we are working quite a bit,” assures McNeil.

Ending his presentation to the board on a characteristically bright note, McNeil mentioned the sheriff’s office received a DPS body run camera grant for $21,300.60 — a sum he referred to as reimbursement and already included in the budget under the licensing the sheriff’s office pays for the use of its cameras and other needed equipment.

A grant announced by the sheriff, that will not be reimbursable, is a $10,000 DPS Safety Over Time grant to aid highway safety. The Jack Radio grant will provide the county with $66,860, according to Sheriff McNeil.

“Which the county, and I appreciate that, had to do a 10% matching and we did get that $60,000 from the county,” he confirmed, adding, “We have two pending grants, one is a Jag Motor Data grant for a MDT project, and we are waiting to find out how much that will be. Secondly, there is a walk-through metal detector project, but we don’t know that amount yet either,” said McNeil, adding the awards are still new.

The anticipated Jag Motor Data grant will be used to install the much-needed MDT system inside the sheriff’s office entire fleet of patrol vehicles, he said.