LOUISBURG — The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office continues to update its website, including new information and masthead, layout and overall look. The cost of the website, however, isn’t clear.
Chief Deputy Ken Pike said the aim of the website remains a part of a community outreach effort to provide instant resources to residents, while also improving accessibility.
“Hopefully it’ll be a site where citizens can ultimately do a lot of the business that they normally do without having to be at the Sheriff’s Office,” Captain of Patrol Operations Rusty Roberts said.
Pike and Roberts said they don’t know the budget for the website change or how much it has cost the Sheriff’s Office so far. Pike said he did not think a particular number for the budget was set.
“Nobody does (know the cost) yet because it hasn’t been completed,” Pike said.
Sheriff Kevin White, elected in 2022, could not be reached after multiple attempts by The Wake Weekly, which scheduled an interview with White. The day of the scheduled in-person meeting, Pike said the sheriff was unavailable.
Inquiries to county staff and offiicials about the website were referred to White.
The Franklin County budget for fiscal 2022-23 allocates $15,000 website maintenance for the county’s information technology services, although it isn’t known whether the funding for the update came from this allocation or elsewhere.
White, a Republican, took office in December after winning 58.44% of the vote, defeating opponent and Democrat Troy Wheless by 4,657 votes, according to the State Board of Elections.
White’s platform centered on law and order, bolstering community safety, defending the Second Amendment and defending — rather than defunding the police — according to his campaign website.
“He is extremely passionate to make Franklin County better,” Pike said. “He is committed and he’s instilled that in all of us to have that same vision of doing something every day to make the county better.”
Pike said White’s central mantras as sheriff are safe schools, safe streets and safe officers. The updated website features a version of this mission. The website includes links to apply for concealed-carry permits, a residence check request form, general information on the office and its employees, a list of frequently asked questions and more.
Roberts said the website will also feature a portal for employees to access important forms and resources.
“It’s an ongoing community platform of public information that we plan to build and have available so that we keep our citizens informed about what’s going on,” Pike said.
The website remains under construction, and some links are not yet functioning, though Pike said the process to launch the update was expedited when someone reported the site was hacked to include a “Chinese link.”
Pike said no one clicked on the link for fear of malware, so he had no information on what the link contained. Pike said he doesn’t know the company or individual responsible for the design of the updated site, but the team responsible also designed White’s campaign website.
Roberts said the sheriff is leading the design process for the updated website and called it White’s “key project.”
The website change prominently features White’s name, changing the website’s former masthead, which labeled the office as “Franklin County Sheriff’s Office” to “The Office of Kevin White Franklin County Sheriff.”
Franklin County is the only county of 100 in North Carolina to list its Sheriff’s Office this way on its website’s masthead, a review by The Wake Weekly found.
Only 12 North Carolina counties, including Wake, list their sheriffs’ names on the masthead of their websites — usually below or beside the particular title for the Sheriff’s Office.
Roberts said the change reflects the elected official chosen by Franklin County voters.
“It is the sheriff — the office of that sheriff, that’s what the people voted for was that sheriff, so from a view point of Sheriff’s Office, that should be the focus,” Roberts said.
“I don’t think there was a conscious effort to say this is ‘the office of’ ‘the sheriff’s office of,’” Pike said. “I don’t think there was any conscious effort either way to put which one before the other. Not from inside. The media team has a strategy, so I don’t know if there’s something that I’m not familiar with.”
When White took office, Pike said, the office had eight or nine vacancies on patrol and about 10 job openings in the county jail, most of which were quickly filled, he said.
“We were blessed that a lot of applications came in early on, obviously because of Sheriff White’s reputation,” Pike said.
White has spent time in the community teaching firearm safety and conducting mass shooter training courses, Pike said.
“He’s just the perfect mold for a sheriff,” Pike said,
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office seeks to create a worker-friendly environment, with competitive salaries and the opportunity for employees to advance and train while enjoying attractive benefits, Pike said, adding the office currently had more applications than positions available.
Roberts said the county also offers health insurance for employees after retirement.
Pike and Roberts said the Sheriff’s Office has emphasized community engagement and increasing the presence of deputies while also focusing on a safe driving campaign for high school students.
“We have extended our community outreach to where our citizens should 100% see more deputies in their communities,” Pike said. “They should see them sitting in their neighborhoods, they should see them sitting in their churches, in their businesses; that is an intentional act that we have done to get our deputies to be more community oriented.”