STEUBEN COUNTY, NY (WENY) -- The Steuben County Manager publicly responded in a video on Friday, February 17th on Facebook, about the ongoing legal battle between the County Legislature and the Sheriff. County Manager Jack Wheeler said the county administration has been relatively quiet concerning Sheriff Jim Allard but wanted to make the video for clarification for county taxpayers.

"We felt it necessary to issue the response to some of the public comments the Sheriff made. We don't want to create a back and forth...Number one is that all of our Deputy Sheriffs who patrol our roads, corrections officers, [and] all of those staff members are fully insured, that has not changed...Number two, we want to clear up some of the reasons why. This was not done overnight, it was a culmination of many things, most importantly for the taxpayers' increased liability," said Wheeler.

In the video, Wheeler alleges Sheriff Allard refuses to buy liability insurance himself, while Sheriff Allard says it would be too expensive. Wheeler said this ongoing legal battle is concerning to taxpayers because out of the 30 or so current lawsuits against the different departments of the county government, 17 are just against the Sheriff's Office. Wheeler said when the time came to renew insurance, the amount of the deductible before insurance kicks in was increasing from $500,000 to $750,000 per claim.

"Certainly those claims are not all attributable to any single action of the Sheriff or Sheriff's Office. It's a trend and it's a concerning trend...Because of the increase in claims, [it's] a real cost to the taxpayer," said Wheeler.

After Sheriff Allard saw the County Manager's video, he responded by saying:

"The Manager's statement is confusing and misinformed. It is unfortunate that as we try to move forward with a functional government that the manager still feels the need to issue a statement on something that could have been solved months ago. I encourage our taxpayers to look into the amount of money that County administration has spent mischaracterizing the issues to the public."

Wheeler said after the Legislature voted to rescind his liability insurance, County leaders planned to talk with Sheriff Allard to reach a solution that would've protected him and the taxpayers.

"We in that local law offered the Sheriff to be able to purchase liability insurance on his own which would be far less expensive to him, as opposed to posting a bond which is what the state law says. He took objection to that so we withdrew it. The issue still at hand that's currently pending in court is the matter of if the legislature acted properly in passing that local law and as a named defendant, I can say the legislature absolutely did," said Wheeler.

In the latest hearing on Thursday, January 4th a State Supreme Court Justice considered the Sheriff's application for discovery.

An application for discovery is a formal process of exchanging information between parties about the witnesses and evidence they plan to present at trial.

"We are trying to access information from confidential executive session and information that was shared, or threats that were made to county legislators when they made the decision that harmed the Sheriff," said Karlee Bolaños, the legal representative for Sheriff Allard in an interview on January 4th.

The Sheriff wanted to access the information during the executive session on September 25th, 2023. Sheriff Allard and his legal team alleged at least one county legislator was pressured or threatened to decide to revoke the Sheriff's indemnification. Indemnification is a form of security; in the instance the Sheriff was sued, and there was a judgment against the Sheriff, the county would pay for the judgment.

The application for discovery was approved, according to Wheeler, and now the County is appealing the decision.

"We're appealing that for completely transparent purposes, that there are items that need to be discussed in executive session. The legislative body has to be able to do that to be able to function and get confidential information," said Wheeler.

A time nor date was not determined for the next court date between the two parties.