Larson takes over as Sheriff

Lucky Larson will take over as Sheriff next Monday, Oct. 16, after the county commissioners gave him the nod to fill the seat vacated by Bill Barron.

As part of the transition, Larson named Det. Jay Doyle to the role of undersheriff, while current undersheriff Mike Sargeant will now head the detective's unit as a lieutenant. The only other change at this point is that jail administrator Ed Todd was named as a captain, but will still retain his same duties at the jail.

Larson will meet with his staff next week to outline his plans, and to answer any questions they have, but he said doing so before he officially takes office would be premature and unprofessional.

"Sheriff Barron is still the sheriff of this county," until Monday, Larson noted.

He said it's only natural for his staff to have questions about the transition.

"I'm going to tell them my plans for the Sheriff's office, and what I'd like to see happen, and if they have questions for me I will answer them then," Larson said. "I'm the new guy coming in, so I'm expecting them to have some questions."

Barron was approved as a Polson police detective at the Oct. 2 city council meeting, and will start working for the city on Monday, as well. In an interview last month, he said he would have liked to have finished out his term, but the Polson police department needed him to start immediately.

Barron's resignation was accepted by the county commissioners. The county commissioners could have appointed someone in the Sheriff's office to finish out Barron's term, or even picked someone from the local Republican party since both Larson and Barron ran as Republican candidates, Barron said in an interview last month.

Larson has spent the past couple of weeks getting up to speed with the office's budget, which will be his biggest and most immediate challenge, he said.

"I've been doing a lot of budget issues this past week, and I will continue to work on that all this week. To come off the road as a school resource officer, and then be handed a $2.5 million budget, is a big task," he said. "I will be meeting with the commissioners to discuss the budget with them, too."

Although having responsibility over the budget is new to him, the issues facing the Sheriff's office are not, Larson noted. He said he will focus on ensuring his staff has the resources to get the job done.

"It's not necessarily new to me, but I don't know too many people have been handed a $2.5 million budget and told, 'Here ya' go.' I need to make sure I'm up on all the budget issues, and make sure my staff gets the training and equipment they need to do the job," Larson said.

He said he wasn't surprised to find the same budget issues Barron confronted are still a challenge to the office.

"The same issues are there — the exact same issues. I could see where Sheriff Barron was going when he tried get that mil levy passed," Larson said of the levy voters didn't pass in 2004.

He said if he'd known he was going to take office early, he probably would have tried to put a similar levy on the November ballot. While there's a search and rescue levy on the ballot, it's too late to add a general Sheriff levy, Larson noted.

"We could definitely have used that," he said of the extra money that could have been brought in.

Despite the expected budget challenges, Larson said he's excited to jump into his new role.

"Anxious. Anxious to get in there. It's a new job. The same office, but a new job," he said. "I've got a good staff to support me, and help me, and to help the people of this county."

Larson will attend a command school in Washington state later this month as part of his leadership training, and will then go to coroner school in Helena in December. Barron appointed Larson as deputy coroner recently, which allows Larson to respond to coroner calls in the meantime.