Robert Graham: Positive Thinker

Ward Schaefer

by Ward Schaefer
December 30, 2009

Robert Graham knows his way around a phone. The Hinds County Supervisor for District 1 keeps three cell phones and is not above using two at once, one on either side of his face—a holdover from the 15 years he spent as media relations officer for the Jackson Police Department. Graham, 57, worked for 35 years as a civilian employee with JPD, starting off in the department's 911 center. A native Jacksonian and Lanier High School graduate, Graham retired from JPD in 2006 and won the District 1 seat, his first elected office, in 2007. On the board of supervisors, Graham speaks carefully and advocates the county's law enforcement agencies.

He spoke to the Jackson Free Press at his office in the Hinds County Chancery Court Building. On top of a cabinet, Graham has assembled his collection of souvenir coffee cups from trips he has taken to train 911 operators.

How do you balance your allegiance to law enforcement with a tightening of the county budget?
Well, I balance my allegiance by saying we should consider public safety first. It has to be our number one priority. I frequently say that nothing else really matters other than public safety if someone is kicking in your front door. Good streets are important, but if someone is kicking in your front door, there's nothing more important than having a motivated law enforcement agency that's intent on reducing crime in this area.

At a recent board meeting, you and Doug Anderson voted against a change order for the Mid-Point Park project in Phil Fisher's district. Why did you vote against it? Isn't there a general understanding that supervisors defer to one another on their home districts?
I didn't have all the information I really needed in order to make an intelligent vote. Every supervisor should know what's best for their particular district. Normally I would not vote against any supervisor who wants anything for their particular district. But this was a special fund that came from the Pearl River Basin, and if that money was not used correctly it was going to have to go back. We wanted to make sure that the change orders that they requested were valid, because we've had other individuals in the past that have made similar requests for change orders, and Mr. Fisher has scrutinized them just as hard as we scrutinized them.

Fisher also claims that the county's budget woes have been years in the making. Do you agree that past boards have gotten Hinds in its current financial mess?
No, there have been problems in the past not only on this board but on every board in every county. It's not a problem where the board said, "Let's go out and spend all the money." There have been unforeseen obligations, unforeseen medical expenses, unforeseen tragedies, unforeseen disasters that have caused the county to have to spend a lot more money. We started out with a budget this year that we knew it was going to be very lean. We were sitting there hoping, but in the past two weeks, we've had two prisoners that were at our jail that have cost us over $100,000.

Explain that to me. I didn't realize the county took that significant a hit on inmate medical expenses.
In the past month, we've had one of our prisoners cost us $100,000, and we've had two prisoners cost us $70,000. One of them had a hernia. Another had blood poisoning from gangrene from a festering wound. Another had seizures. Now, last year was a very good year. We actually saved $1 million by being very proactive, last year, with inmate medical. But this year, we're just going through it.

How much does the county budget for inmate medical?
The county budgeted $1.7 million last year and spent $1,812,381. One of the things that I proposed when I first came on the board was having prisoners pay to go to jail. Charge them for the sheets that they use, charge them for the pillowcases they use, make them at least go through a co-pay when they have medical expenses, charge them for transporting them to the hospital. I wanted the prisoners to pay us $5 for taking their photos, I wanted them to pay $5 for fingerprinting, I wanted them to pay $25 for administrative fees to defray some of the cost. And I got a tremendous amount of support from the general public, who said: "You know what? That's so crazy it just might work."

What do you do about the ones that can't pay?
The ones that can't pay simply can't pay. But if we get only 15 to pay, that's 15 more that are (currently) not paying. This is not anything new. This is being done all over the country. If you see how much of your taxpayer money, $1.8 million, is going toward inmates, then what could we be doing with that money if we could defray that cost?

Beyond simply protecting law enforcement, what direction would you like to take the county in the future?
It is almost unthinkable that Jackson is not a college city when we're sitting in the middle of Jackson State, Belhaven, Millsaps, Mississippi College, Tougaloo and Hinds. By default, we should be a college town. It doesn't require a whole lot of ingenuity to have State Street and West Street lined with posters that say "Millsaps" or "Belhaven." It doesn't take a lot ingenuity for from Lynch Street all the way downtown to have posters saying "Jackson State."

Any other idea for the county's future?
Let me give you my craziest idea. My craziest idea comes from wanting to set Jackson and Hinds County apart from other areas and give it that distinction that I think we deserve as the capital city. St. Louis has this arch. I wanted to—and we're working on this by the way—I wanted someone to develop a giant "J" that will be at the entrance to the city of Jackson that will let you know you're at the capital city of the state of Mississippi.

What's the response been like so far?
I think it's very positive. ... That's how I choose to look at things on the board—keep moving positive. Of course people will look at that and say, 'Why do we need that when we don't have any money?' but you can't stop thinking positive just because you're broke.

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