Walsh Wins 3rd Term as Champaign County Sheriff

Champaign County Sheriff Dan Walsh said campaigning for re-election was more time-consuming this year, because he had an opponent for the first time. Still, the Republican incumbent easily won re-election to a third term on Tuesday. He received 85.5 percent of the vote against independent write-in candidate Jerommie Smith.

Smith, a former sheriff's deputy, campaigned on a theme of improving the fiscal management of the sheriff's office, but Walsh contended that he has already done a good job adjusting to a tight county budget while continue to provide law enforcement.

"We save the taxpayers a lot of money, in how we do everything from the gasoline to the prisoner medical bills," Walsh said. "The Electronic Detention Program --- if we didn't have that, I would have run out of food money a couple of months ago. So we've saved a lot of money, we've operated well within our budget, despite the cutbacks. It's been tough, but we've been able to do it."

The Electronic Detention Program puts non-violent offenders on home detention --- monitored through an electronic ankle bracelet. Walsh said the program is cheaper than housing those offenders at the county jail.

Meanwhile, Smith said he still worries that tight finances in Champaign County could affect the number of deputies or level of service at the sheriff's department. He said he will review his performance as a write-in candidate, and decide if it might be worth running again in 2014 --- if he can get his name on the ballot next time.