The Spartanburg County Council motioned to approve a new position for the Sheriff’s Department on Monday evening. This new role, titled Master Deputy, will be dedicated to assisting with the Sex Offender Registry Unit within the department.
According to Capt. Anthony Soddu, who presented the proposal to the Council, there are 948 registered sex offenders in Spartanburg County. Soddu also notes that this number is growing, with seven to 10 people being added to the list each month.
“That doesn’t mean they’ve all committed crimes here, but they could be migrating from other counties,” Soddu said at the meeting. “Now, our registry gets more and more full with these new folks coming in all the time.”
The new position will be in charge of address verification for registered sex offenders, which the Sheriff’s Office confirms twice a year. All funding for the position is set to come from fees generated by the registry. These fees, which have accrued to about $244,000, are mandated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to be used explicitly for the Sex Offender Registry Unit. The Council also moved to accept the re-grading of two positions within the Sheriff’s department, which is meant to save the county roughly $17,000 a year, according to Soddu.
The Council made other moves outside of the Sheriff’s Office, including approving the Spartanburg County Detention Facility to apply for continued funds from the South Carolina Opioid Recovery Funds (SCORF).
The detention facility worked with Melissa Fritsche, a board-certified doctor in both addiction medicine and family medicine, to start an opioid addiction program last October. Within its first nine months, 303 incarcerated individuals have enrolled in the program.
“On average, folks who are incarcerated have more severe disease,” Fritsche said at the meeting. “...What has been particularly gratifying to me is that, often in this community, we are treating folks who have not before accessed or tried to access treatment.”
According to Fritsche, the leading cause of death for incarcerated people after they are released is drug overdose. The program works with these individuals both inside and outside the detention facility, ensuring that they have access to resources after their release date. No drug-related deaths have been reported by those enrolled in the program since it began last fall.
Also in the meeting, Public Works Director Travis Brown provided an update on the Road Enhancement Program. Deputy County Administrator Earl Alexander provided updates on the construction and staffing of the Pet Resource Center, which is set to open this year.
More information on the Spartanburg County Council and its meetings can be found on its website.
