- Our planet is in chaos.

Our waters are polluted, our air is poisoned.

We have no laws go forth through space to the planet Earth.

Learn from them.

We have so little time left.

- Take me two yard leaders.

- Who are you?

Well, what do you want?

- My planet is in trouble.

We need your help.

Please take me to your leaders.

- I've been traveling around quite a bit with Ntic, my alien friend.

He's learning about Ohio government, but sometimes I catch him in front of my television watching game shows.

Well, anyway, it's time to check out county government.

Let's go.

There are 88 counties in Ohio, including yours.

County government is the oldest form of government in Ohio.

Now the head of the county government is a board of county commissioners.

Each board is made up of three persons who are elected by the people of the county.

Commissioners are elected to a four year term.

When I got to the Carroll County Courthouse, commissioner Bruce Schmidt was in a meeting with John Davis, one of the other county commissioners.

I learned that county commissioners oversee the services of the county government.

These services include keeping records of births, deaths, the sale of land and property ownership.

The commissioners prepare a budget to use tax money to build and repair roads, schools, libraries, hospitals, parks, and other facilities.

Another service of county government is to supervise the elections of the county.

The county must register voters and prepare ballots.

Let's go to Morgan County to see about another service.

One more service of county government is to maintain law and order outside the city boundaries.

Counties do this by providing police protection.

I met with Mr. Greg Ryan, the sheriff of Morgan County, to find out about his responsibilities.

The county sheriff enforces the laws of the county.

Sheriffs are elected for four year terms.

He or she makes arrests, runs the county jail and helps the state and city police keep the peace in the county.

The sheriff also serves written orders to persons who must appear in court.

Now the sheriff and the commissioner are on their way back to my office to answer some more questions, but I think that with the help of nec, we can beat them back.

Hi, I'm glad you're all here because I need your help.

Now, some of you have phones right in your classrooms and in a few minutes I'm gonna ask you to call me.

But first I wanna introduce some very special people to you.

Right here in my office is Mr. Bruce Schmidt, a commissioner from Carroll County, and Mr. Greg Ryan, the sheriff from Morgan County.

Thank you both for being with us today.

- Thank you, Katie.

Thank you.

It's a joy to be here.

- Great.

Okay.

Also with me are two of my assistant private eyes and Hamilton, who's from Miller Middle School and Shawnee.

And Tony Mansfield, who's from McConnells Elementary School.

- Hi.

- Great.

Okay.

Now I know that you guys have questions about county commissioner and the county government and the sheriff and well, we have some questions too.

So the first question for Commissioner Schmidt - Is from Anne.

We know your term is four years.

How many years do you have left as a commissioner and are you planning on running again?

- I have two more years on my term and I think I will run unless my health gives out or something like that.

- Okay.

Tony, do you have to go to any kind of school or have any kind of special training to be a county commissioner?

- No.

You do not any, any special training or any special schooling.

You just have to be able to work with people and understand the laws.

- Okay.

Yeah.

Keeping records sounds like a really big job.

Is it hard to keep up with things and why is it important?

- Well, there's a lot of records to be kept in.

If you go to any county courthouse, you can go way back in years.

And everything in the county is based on the records.

So there are some records that must be kept forever.

But we have a lot of help in the commissioner's office.

We have a clerk and she handles all of our business and we keep all those recorded in a book.

And then we have a counter recorder, a county clerk, treasurer and auditor, and all those people help us keep the records.

- Oh, okay.

Tony, in general, how much does a county commissioner get paid and is it a full-time or part-time job?

- The, it's a part-time job in most counties.

The salary for a commissioner varies with the county depending upon the population.

In the case of our county, it's 27,000 people and our salary is $26,700 a year.

- Okay.

Ann, how often do you attend meetings as a county commissioner?

- We have regular meetings Mondays and Thursdays and all county business must be done in those meetings.

Then we have meetings that we attend at all various functions throughout the county with the trustees, with the other county officials, and of course learning sessions with other commissioners and other counties.

- Okay.

Tony, what projects are you working on right now as a commissioner?

- Well, we have several going, we're building a firehouse and we're also putting a water line in from one community to another.

We have just opened some bids last week for building 11 new bridges in the county.

And we are also going to open bids very shortly for paving of highways and all that goes through the county commissioner's office, even though the engineer is the person who does all that work, but it goes through our office.

- Okay.

Does the public attend your meetings and what do you discuss at your meetings?

- All meetings are open meetings.

Any citizen can come in and we are not allowed to conduct any business outside of those meetings if we have a special meeting to handle special business, unless it's an emergency, it must be announced 24 hours beforehand to anyone that's interested and, and it has to be posted and they are allowed to attend those meetings.

So they're open.

We discuss all kinds of things.

I mentioned opening bids for bridges.

Any resolutions that we pass, any hiring that we do all has to be done in the open meeting.

You, you could, you could talk about it outside of the meeting, but any official business has to be done in the open meeting.

- Okay.

Tony, why did you become a county commissioner?

- Well, I'm a retired school superintendent and I was retired for eight years and I felt I had a little bit of expertise.

I felt I could serve my fellow citizens and that's what I'm trying to do now.

- Okay.

Well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna go on for the questions for the sheriff, and our first question for the sheriff is from Tony.

Why did you run to be a county sheriff?

- I ran to be county sheriff 'cause I felt that I could do an outstanding job with law enforcement in Morgan County and make things the community a lot safer place and more productive place as far as law enforcement in Morgan County.

- Okay.

And what is the most important part of your job as a sheriff?

- The most important part is enforce the laws.

We have a great deal of laws we have to enforce and is to, to be out there and protect the people in their property.

And sometimes things go array and sometimes we have to put people in jail.

- Okay.

Tony, does county sheriff have more or less responsibilities in a city than a city police officer?

Hmm.

- Yes.

The, the county sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer of the county.

He's responsible to make sure there's peace throughout the entire county and he kind of coordinates with the local villages or city policemen.

So we all basically go doing the same thing.

And that's the, for the protection of the people in the property in the county.

- Okay.

Do you ever work with state policemen - In the state?

In the state of Ohio, they're called state troopers.

State highway patrol.

We don't have state police, but yes we do.

We work very closely with those folks.

And because we're all doing the same thing, we all have have the same goals to make Ohio just as safe as we can.

- Okay.

Tony, how many deputies do you have in your department?

How many of them are full-time?

And how many of them are part-time?

- Presently, I have seven full-time deputies.

I have no part-time people.

I'm just a newly elected sheriff.

I've been on a job for about nine weeks now and those things are, are coming along quite well.

- Okay.

Yeah.

How do you supervise them when they are out in the field and you are in your office?

- I have people that, I have supervisors who have a greater rank than a deputy at less rank than I do.

So sort of like sergeants or lieutenants.

And they had the responsibility to keep an eye on my road people, and then they report back to me so I know what's going on.

- Okay.

If your jails are ever flowing or crime or crime is on the uprise, what, what does the sheriff do?

- Well, we, we have to do with what we've got and we make other arrangements with surrounding counties in a cooperative, in a cooperative manner so that we can house people that don't want equate, do things what they should do and house 'em in other counties.

- Okay.

Yeah.

How much of your day is spent in your office and how much of your day is spent in the community?

- Well, right now, quite a bit spent in the office reorganizing things and getting things organized in the office is what I'm spending most of my time doing.

But when there's just, when there's something that's really needs to be addressed by me or something as important going on, I'm out there firsthand taking, taking care of those problems.

- Okay.

Tony, what was your biggest arrest ever?

Without naming any names?

- I guess the, the most memorable one for me was a person that had allegedly, or someone had killed, killed another person and escaped from the county jail.

And I was responsible for apprehending that person and putting it back in the jail.

- Okay.

Well, right now what we're gonna do is we'll take some phone questions and I have my speakerphone on so we can hear the questions.

So who's the first caller and where are you calling from?

This - Is Mikayla from Chris.

Okay.

K School.

- Okay.

It's McKayla.

And you from, are you from Cooksville?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Who would you like to ask a question to?

- Commissioner?

- Okay.

Go ahead.

- What are some of the ways the county gets money?

- Well, there are several ways.

Our greatest revenue source is income tax.

1%.

Every time you buy a loaf of bread or a book or a tablet, I'm sorry, bread is not taxed.

A tablet or pencil, I'll put it that way.

There's a 6% tax, 1% of that comes to county.

We also have county levies, which help to build the roads, build bridges, and then a lot of our revenue comes from the state and federal government.

- Okay.

Now our next question is from Amanda and she's calling from East Elementary.

Amanda, are you there?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Speak loud and tell us, what would you like to ask the sheriff?

- If you could stop any kind of crime, what would you stop and why?

- Well, if I could stop any crime, it would be crimes against folks like yourself.

Small children have a very special place in my heart.

And see to see them safe is my greatest goal as a sheriff.

And I'm sure all law enforcement across this country had the same goal to make it safe for your little folks.

- Okay.

Our next question is, I think your name Tenaya, is that right?

Yeah.

She's from Harrisonville and she's gonna ask a question to the Commissioner.

- Tenaya.

Hello.

My question is to the commissioner, what is your favorite, favorite job of being a commissioner?

Hmm.

- My favorite job is working with people.

I have always enjoyed working with people.

Some people get mad at us and get very upset with us, but most people are great people to work with, and that's what I enjoy most about the job.

- Okay.

Next question is from Vanessa.

She's also from Cooksville, and she'd like to ask a question to the sheriff.

- Sheriff Brian, is a murder or another crime happens in the city that is in your county?

Do you hope to sell the crime?

- Yes.

If there is a crime committed within, within the city, within the county, we will provide any assistance that that city police department requires.

It's the responsibility of the sheriff to supplement or to help airway possible.

The local police that may not have the, the know, know-how or the equipment to do such a major crime as you com as you mentioned.

And we work closely together.

And 'cause you know, the main goal is to, is to put the, the, the person who did the crime in jail.

- Okay.

We have another phone question.

It's from Jennifer and she's from East Elementary.

And Jennifer, would you like to ask the commissioner a question?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Go ahead.

- If you could change anything in your county, what would you change?

- Well, that's a difficult question.

There's a lot of things I would like to change, but the, the major thing probably would be to curb the crime and the things that, that irritate people and upset people and cause people to be, to have a harder life.

That's what I would like to change.

- Okay.

Our next question is from Amanda.

Is it Amanda?

- Yeah, - From Harrisonville.

Okay.

Ask a question for the sheriff.

- Have you ever been in a dangerous situation and how did it make you feel?

- Yeah.

Yes.

In the earlier program I talked about the most, most important arrest that I made.

Yes.

That was a very dangerous situation.

I was just myself and another officer, and it did, it affected me greatly for probably two days after the incident.

And because this person was a very dangerous person and without the support of my fellow officers and, and my family, my wife in particular, it was a very trying time for, for, for me at that that particular point.

And law law enforcement officers across the country goes through, through, go through the same thing daily.

And your little folks need to understand that we are here to help you and we are human too and, but - That okay.

Town.

All right.

Wow.

Okay.

Next question is from Chris and it's from, he's from Cooksville or she is for the commissioner, Chris - Commissioner.

Are the duties of a town township trustee similar to a commissioner's duties?

- Yes, they're very similar except that the township trustees have a smaller area to cover.

We cover all the kinds.

Okay.

In the case of Carroll County, we have 14.

- Okay.

- Townships.

- Great.

Okay.

Well, we're just about outta time for questions today, so thank you very much being with us.

I hope you're learning as much from this investigation as I am so far, NTIC and I have learned that the county government runs elections, keeps important records and builds and repairs roads.

Now, before we move on to the next stage of our investigation, I wanna tell you about a challenge activity for you and your teacher.

Now listen carefully.

Today's challenge can be found on page 16 of the Teacher's Guide.

This challenge is to hold a mock election for a county commissioner or a sheriff by the end of next week.

Write to me Katie Sherlock to tell me about it.

Let me know what you did and what you learned.

I just need one letter per class and include your teacher's name and school address.

You can send your letters to me at the address you see on your screen.

See you next time.

- Take me to Your Leaders.

Was made possible by a grant from the Ohio Education Technology Equity Commission.