Society Hill in compliance with Municipal Association standards
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
During the August Society Hill Town Council meeting, Police Chief David Young spoke to council about efforts to bring his department into compliance with state mandates.
“I have spoken in the past about how times have changed and there are numerous guidelines and regulations that are placed on law enforcement agencies all across the state,” Young said. “We have to have certain polices and procedures in place that we must follow.”
Young said that in the time since he assumed his post, several areas of non-compliance had been made compliant. He also spoke about the manual that has been working on for the police department.
“The town’s torte and liability insurance is through the South Carolina Municipal Association,” Young said. “They have a risk management program that is basically designed to identify and help reduce high liability activities within law enforcement agencies. They have developed a minimum standard across law enforcement agencies in South Carolina. There are certain guidelines that we have to follow as well as certain policies that we have to have in place that they require. If we don’t comply or become compliant in all of these aspects, it could affect our insurance rates.”
Young said that during a meeting last year he learned that the town was only 50 percent complaint.
“I met with the risk management consultant in the spring of last year when I had been here a few months and was working on a few things that I had seen we weren’t in compliance with,” Young said.
“In this meeting, a risk assessment was done and we were graded a five out of a possible ten; we were fifty percent complaint basically.”
After getting the assessment, Young said that he worked diligently to change the town’s assessed risk.
“Over the last year, we have become compliant in every area that we possibly could and we also have a workable policy and procedure manual that is in compliance with the municipal association,” Young said. “I just met with the consultant again in July and another assessment was done; he spent several hours here. After this assessment a letter was sent that states that we comply with 10 out of 10 points; we received 100 percent.”
In old business, Kenny Stratton updated council on S&S Production’s interest in the old St. David’s building for their haunted house. Stratton told council that they would be bowing out of any process to update and rent the building considering the great cost of the renovations.