Jail Administration costs

After I wrote an article about the McHenry County Jail (which will be published here a little later today), I got to thinking about the cost of jail administration.

Thanks to the website of the Better Government Association, it's easy and fast to look up a government employee's salary.

At our jail here, the Corrections Chief is Dan Sedlock, Jr. His salary is $123,655.74. Benefits, of course, are on top of that. A while back he was ill and hospitalized, and I recall being told that his take-home car was in use by family members for daily trips to the hospital (50 miles each way). At the time I wondered whether they were buying their own fuel for those trips, but I never pursued it.

An interesting name popped up in the BGA search results - Elva Sedlock is a Corrections sergeant at the McHenry County Jail, and her annual salary is $83,786.56.

Is she related to Dan? If so, is there no nepotism rule in McHenry County government?

The Deputy Chief of Corrections is Patrick Firman, and his salary is $112,414.12.

Now I'm curious what the duties of each are and whether both are needed. What is the Jail getting for a quarter of a million dollars a year (not counting benefits)?

And, of course, I continue to wonder what the County is getting, when we pay the sheriff $151,328.32 and pay the undersheriff $136,021.08/year (plus benefits). Zinke recently wrote that he has been running things since 2010, so I guess the $151,000/year is wasted on an absentee sheriff.

If McHenry County had a working sheriff, would an undersheriff be needed?

Errata (2/7/14); The salary information from the BGA website was as of September 2012. I am told that Elva Sedlock is no longer employed at the MCSD Jail.