No. Sheriff departments are useless. Literally the shittiest of shit when it comes to accountability and use of funds.

We also elect our legislators.

This. And, I believe the only way currently to remove a Sheriff is by legislative impeachment, a slow laborious process. The reason we are seeing so much corruption and abuse of office among sheriffs is due to lack of oversight and accountability. I fully support legislation to curb this abuse of office

I think it’s relevant that any elected official meet certain criteria for the role they are running for. I realize we do have minimal qualifications, but age, citizenship, residency are minimum qualifications. It’s a fine line of creating additional minimums that are relevant to the position while not excluding people or controlling who can be elected. For example, a college age man was elected to a towns tax collector position unseeded an incumbent who was an accountant for years prior to becoming the tax collector. The newly elected guy was not an accountant and was not even finished with his degree. Maybe it’ll be fine, but it’s seems reasonable to require the person to be a CPA or at least a degree in accounting. Again, we must balance these requirements with not excluding people from office.

unseated (I agree w your point). :)

Same can be said about the state auditor. The position should be a CPA, but our current auditor isn’t.

I would be great if our legislative candidates had to take a math test to show they understood percentages and compound interest.

We have a way, we just never use it. We can, as a community, decide to March one of these schmucks to the county line and tell them they aren’t welcome back. You’re right in that the community needs the authority here, but we already have it. What we need is community lead oversight and community organizing so we all know when to meet at the sheriff’s office to begin the March to the county line.

Most of these people aren’t even from the communities they work in and claim to protect. As for supporting them, I’ll support them when one of the supposed good ones starts speaking out strongly against the bad ones. If the good apples happily stay in the barrel with the bad ones, they’re spoiled too.

Just look at that POS in Addison county. Every other sherif should have been calling loudly for him to step down. That scumbag was charged with two counts of felony sexual assault, his ex-wife went public saying she experienced the same abuse, and everyone just sat back and said “oh well if he won’t leave on his own guess there’s nothing we can do, awe shucks.” That is insane. Beyond insane. It’s embarrassing and shameful. Every other Vermont cop should be disgusted to be associated with the profession here when that is allowed to happen. What a joke.

Nationally too, not just here.

Let me tell them about the Rutland sheriff who called his friend to flatbed my car then drive me to Citizens in Proctor and take my cash limit out or "I'll lose your car for a long time." Why are they even a thing? It's not the 1600s anymore.

This seems like a great way to do nothing while looking like you’re doing something. It’s technically more difficult to amend our constitution than to impeach an official, & several of these sheriffs should be impeached and removed from office. But, no one actually wants to do something like actually remove them.

Our system favors the status quo.

From a flat lander in CT: it needs to be easier to remove people in that kind of power. My local police chief has such an ironclad contract that the voters want him out but cannot remove him short of his own gross misconduct (i.e. doesn’t matter if the department is shit by his design, he cannot be removed without him fucking up).

Having a mechanism to remove people that are not wanted by voters is a good thing. Having rules is also a good thing. We’re suffering because we cannot.

Read responses, and for those who think we need to have specific qualifications for Sheriffs - what would the qualifications be and what is the rationale?

I see absolutely zero need, for instance, for a Sheriff to be a state certified police officer or other law enforcement type - especially when you read the Sheriff's statutory duties. Others probably see that as fundamental to the job of being a Sheriff.

So, what qualifications and why?

Nothing HAS to be slow about impeachment. It's a work avoidance thing.

First, you have to remember that we have a part time legislature with a full time job to do. Second someone has to investigate the allegations and develop charges. That alone is a significant amount of work. Then the House has to vote to impeach. After that the senate has to hold a trial. All of this has to happen while still conducting the other business before the legislature. So yeah, it’s a slow, laborious process.

It’s up to the local leaders and the people to change that.

(quick bitch - nothing personal) I am sick of hearing about a part time legislature with a full time job. Every legislator applied for the job and put a great amount of effort into getting elected VOLUNTARILY. Perhaps ideas for a more lengthy legislative session with better administrative support would get further if the most common proposals didn't involve reducing representation for those of us NOT able to physically access the State House.

There are 150 state representatives and 30 state senators. I've spent time in the State House and I know the flow of business.