Prison chaplain given approval
The Fayette County commissioners ratified an agreement Thursday with the chaplain of the Fayette County Prison for a job the man has been doing for years. The commissioners unanimously ratified the agreement retroactively, with the beginning date of April 1 and continuing until the contract is void. Terry A. Sanders will be paid $500 a month for his services as prison chaplain.
Although he has been the chaplain at the lockup since 2005, Sanders had been working without an agreement from the time he was retained, but that fact was only discovered several months ago.
Controller Sean Lally learned while conducting an audit earlier this year that Sanders did not have an agreement and that he was being paid from the prison’s discretionary spending account.
After the audit, Lally recommended changes that included closing the account, and placing the discretionary prison account funds in the county’s general fund budget in the future.
When that occurred, for a time Sanders wasn’t paid, although he never stopped ministering to the inmates.
“He didn’t have an agreement. It was more of a contract issue,” Lally said.
Sanders now has a contract and is a “1099 employee,” meaning he now receives a 1099 tax form annually and is now paid from the general fund in the prison line item, Lally said. The $500 a month is the same salary he earned prior to having a contract.
Lally said Sanders never stopped doing his chaplain work at the prison, although he didn’t have a formal agreement.
“We had a good-faith agreement,” Lally said.
Sanders supervises 30 volunteers. In his duties, Sanders holds worship services every week and conducts Bible study classes. He also arranges Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotic Anonymous meetings for inmates, schedules visits from other clergy and raises money for inmates for goods and gifts.
He also helps prisoners who have suffered a death in the family and started a life-skills class for women inmates.
Sanders is pastor at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in Fairchance.