Keith Howard is running for sheriff again, as a challenger to incumbent Noel Brown. Both qualified as Republican candidates, so the race will be decided in the May 21 primary – for which the early voting opportunity starts Monday, April 29 – and only by those Bulloch County voters who choose the Republican ballot.

This is the fourth time that Howard, now 62, who served nearly 20 years with the Georgia State Patrol and about one year as an interim chief deputy in neighboring Jenkins County, has run for sheriff in his native Bulloch. The first time was in 2012 as one of two Republican primary challengers to then-Sheriff Lynn Anderson; the second was in 2016, when Anderson was retiring and Brown was one of three candidates for the open seat. Brown won the primary over another Republican, but Howard, by running as a Democrat that year, continued the race to the November general election, where he took 33.4% of the votes. When he alone challenged Brown in 2020, Howard, back to running as a Republican, polled 15.3% in the primary. He says, then and now, that the office should be nonpartisan.

Arriving for an interview, Howard brought copies of past Statesboro Herald stories to indicate that the same issues he saw facing the Bulloch County Sheriff's Office and Jail in 2020, and which had been identified in the 2016 campaign and in discussions Brown had with the county commissioners and county manager a couple of years after that, are still the issues.

"Sadly, thing's ain't changed much," Howard said. "That's why I ask the voters when you go to researching my opponent and myself, ask yourself, in the two terms that he's been sheriff, what has he done? …What you can you honestly say that he's accomplished, and that's one of the reasons why I'm running again is the citizens deserve better protection, the employees deserve better benefits, and he's had two terms now to deal with some of these issues that were supposedly going to be dealt with immediately."

He notes that expansion of the Bulloch County Jail remains a concern and that it was one Brown and the county administration were discussing in summer 2018, six years ago.

"The jail's an issue, it's been an issue, and it's still an issue, and it should have done been resolved," Howard said.

Because of crowding, the county needs to expand the jail more urgently now, he said. Howard asserts that the county has "lost millions of dollars from the federal inmate budget" because Brown stopped taking federal inmates, and that now the county is "outsourcing inmates to other facilities, costing us thousands of dollars." Meanwhile the cost of materials and labor for construction have "gone through the roof," Howard said.

The county did add a new intake and medical building, completed last year, at the jail. But an additional dormitory pod remains in planning, as one of several projects considered for future sales tax funding.

Howard's complaint that "deputies lost thousands of dollars of overtime from transporting those federal inmates" contrasts with his assertion that large amounts of deputy overtime remain a problem that the current sheriff has not corrected. According to the challenger candidate's research, the department's overtime cost, approaching $2 million annual at one point, continues to average more than $1 million a year.

Overtime pay starts at 1.5 times regular hourly rates. One way to reduce overtime would be to employ more deputies, but that comes with other costs for equipping them. The actual number of new hires each year is worked out between the sheriff and the county commissioners' staff and ultimately approved by the commissioners.

His goals

"My goal is to retain and recruit, and to do that, you've got to offer a wage that is competitive," Howard said. "The Statesboro Police Department dispatcher starting salary is more than a starting (BCSO) deputy's salary, and that's unacceptable."

Other goals on his list include recognizing sheriff's department personnel for the work they do and extending the school resource officer program to place SROs at all of the Bulloch County Schools campuses.

"Your deputies have got to be recognized for their job performance," he said. "That's not being done. Every deputy deserves some type of pat on the back in the public eye and in private. The community needs to be involved with these people, and the people (in the sheriff's department) need to be involved in the community," he said.

The Statesboro Police Department provides resource officers to Statesboro High School. But the Bulloch County Sheriff's Office provides deputies as SROs to most of the schools in the county that have them, with the Board of Education paying a share of the cost.

"We still don't have resource officers in every school; that's unacceptable," Howard said.

As soon as he would arrive in office as sheriff, he asserts, he would work with Sgt. James Billings, who oversees the Sheriff's Office SROs, on a new plan.

"We'll present that to the city and the board, and if they don't act on it, that's in their path, you know," Howard said. "But I'm going to make an action to protect our children."

In recent remarks to the county commissioners, he criticized Brown for supporting last year's tax hike and advocating further increased spending. In the interview, the reporter noted that a sheriff as a constitutional officer has a role in requesting the resources his department needs. So how would Howard avoid increasing taxes and yet provide adequate staffing and better salaries?

"Grants," he said. "You know, look at all the grants out there. You've got to apply for these grants. I'm sure the county's got a grant writer, but I'll look into a grant writer of my own."

He also advocates the use of "reserve deputies" to reduce overtime.

"We've got a good supply of retired military, retired law enforcement and just civilians in general that would volunteer to help us with that. You've got to stay in line with your budget, and yes, the sheriff's got a responsibility to keep us safe and to have a budget to do that adequately, but we're not being kept safe."

He asserts that there are "gangs running rampant," there's "prostitution at the local motels" and "people coming in here from out of state and out of county committing crimes."

Howard acknowledged than a campaign to replace an incumbent sheriff is "an uphill battle."

"It's a challenge, but that's why I ask people to research who you vote for, not only the sheriff but all your local candidates. Research what they're doing and what they haven't done," he said.

As of Monday, Sheriff Brown had not responded to phone messages left last week requesting a candidate interview.