Dodge County Sheriff Defends Workplace Culture, Touts Accountability

(Juneau) Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt defended his record Friday on WBEV’s Community Comment. His opponent in the August Republican primary claimed the department’s high turnover rate in recent years was evidence of an unhealthy work environment. Schmidt calls the implication a (quote) “farce” saying 14 agencywide resignations last year were no different than any other workplace or even sheriff’s office. He noted that Winnebago County, where his opponent works, had to close a jail pod because they did not have enough employees.

“Have we had some people that haven’t like the…culture change of accountability,” he asked “Sure…and some people aren’t comfortable with that.”

Candidate Mark Colker also accuses the incumbent of dragging his feet on open records requests into the department’s staffing. Schmidt says the records in question had only been requested two weeks prior and noted that his owns requests of Colker’s personnel records were made months ago.

“It hasn’t been a month like [I] was accused of,” he says.

The sheriff says he has been tough on crime noting that the number of property crimes is at such a low level that just one or two unsolved cases skews the statistics.

“That’s what we’ve been doing, and we’ve been successful at that,” he says.

Both candidates have accused their opponent of inappropriate conduct, a topic will be look closer at closer during our news tomorrow.