Kindler: ‘I’m well respected by the men and women I work with’

Bob Kindler, a detective/supervisor for the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office, is hoping to take his 23 years of law enforcement experience to the next level as he seeks his first term as Freeborn County sheriff.

Currently a resident of Albert Lea, Kindler has lived in Freeborn County for 23 years. He has been married to his wife, Laurie, for 27 years and they have no children.

He is an active member of the Daybreakers Kiwanis Club, Ducks Unlimited, Towards Zero Death Coalition and serves on the board of directors for a local credit union.

In his spare time, Kindler, 51, enjoys traveling, woodworking, bicycling, working with stained glass, and he deems himself an “avid fisherman.”

Background

Kindler is originally from Lynd, located in southwestern Minnesota.

He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in criminal justice studies.

He supplemented his law enforcement training at Willmar Community College and then enrolled in the law enforcement skills program in Edina. He became licensed eligible to be a police officer/deputy sheriff the summer of 1985.

Kindler’s first employment in law enforcement was as a police officer with the Austin Police Department. “I accepted that after applying for a patrol position with Freeborn County,” he said. “About eight months later, Freeborn County called me about the position.”

Kindler became a patrolman for the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office on June 1, 1987. He worked as a patrolman until April 1992, when he was promoted to detective.

As an investigator, Kindler focused primarily on crimes against persons and adult and child physical and sexual abuse. He was also assigned to work welfare fraud.

In October 1995, Kindler was promoted to his current position of supervisor/investigator. Due to the growth in staff and the new facility, he said the workload of that position has grown quite a bit.

Kindler has two primary goals if elected sheriff: improving services to the people of Freeborn County and the budget.

“We need to strategically plan for future needs in advance and look at areas to save money and improve the way we deliver our services,” he said.

Improving services

Kindler said he will improve services by increasing training to current staff to better respond to the people’s needs. He feels the Sheriff’s Office needs to increase the education level in the areas of cybercrimes, identity theft, response to sexual assaults and other crimes against persons.

“Cybercrimes and identity theft are growing exponentially. They far outweigh other crimes reported,” he said.

Most recently, Kindler has also been working with crime victims with disabilities, an issue just realized by law enforcement nationwide over the past couple of years. The statistics are staggering, and he feels training in this area is imperative. “There’s about a 100 percent likelihood that a person with disabilities will experience physical or sexual abuse in their lifetime,” he said.

“Since the 1970s, so much has been learned about domestic violence and our response to that,” he added.

He said better training, along with treating employees and residents fairly and equally, will both improve morale, as well.

Budget

Kindler is proposing to eliminate wasted spending.

He believes too much is spent on overtime. He says that by converting the chief deputy and two jail administrators from an hourly to a salary rate would eliminate part of this issue.

He also proposes that detective supervisors currently required to work holidays be switched to an on-call as-needed basis during the holidays. “There’s no need for detective supervisors to work holidays,” he said. “We could eliminate that overtime rate and go to an on-call schedule, if need be.”

Kindler also pointed out that these positions are not union, so the schedule adjustments can be made.

Kindler would also ask for grade class studies on certain positions to possibly reclassify those to a lower grade level, in turn, saving money on salaries for these positions in the future. “Nobody loses their job or their current wage, but for future positions, these could be reclassified and eventually save in costs,” he said.

Kindler would also like to see the elimination of one detective supervisor position, and in its place create two patrol supervisor positions. He said that as it is now with the detective portion and the supervisor portion of the job combined, “we’re not able to provide adequate time to either role.”

“The detective supervisor position was created in 1974 at a time when there were six patrol deputies and a very small jail staff,” he added. “Since then, it’s evolved into the supervision of several times that number of people.”

The other benefit to this plan, Kindler said, was that it puts a supervisor with a patrol staff, where its most needed.

He said all of these steps combined would total in a savings of $60,000 to $100,000 a year that could be trimmed from the budget or reallocated to training and equipment.

Kindler also said that while the Sheriff’s Office needs to anticipate and embrace changes in technology, it needs to plan for the future and not spend on things it cannot necessarily afford right now.

City and county

Kindler said that he’s got a close working relationship with the Albert Lea Police Department and another of his goals is to work together to avoid duplication of services, in turn saving taxpayer dollars.

Combining investigations of child abuse, vulnerable adult abuse and drug investigations are a few areas where he said duplication occurs. “We’ll continue to explore other areas, as well,” he said.

He also cautioned about jumping head first into a city-county partnership. “Every election cycle, there’s talks about saving money by combining city and county forces,” he said. “In some places, it’s worked and others, it has not.”

Kindler said it would take careful evaluation first, and would have to be a decision of the voters in the future.

ICE

Kindler wanted to be clear about one thing: If elected, he will not eliminate the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract, nor could he because it requires commissioner action.

He did admit he has serious concerns about its longevity, however.

“With immigration reform, the budget cycle of federal funding, the economy and the backlog in the court systems of detaining individuals creates a longer time period for holding them,” he said. “If people are processed quicker, we could see those numbers that we’re holding go down.”

He said these are all pressures that could cause the numbers to fall to a point where the jail would not be able to maintain the number of ICE prisoners necessary to cover the costs.

Qualifications

Kindler feels his education, knowledge and experience are just a portion of what makes him the top candidate for the position of sheriff.

“I have the trust of the LEC, a reputation of treating people fairly and honestly and fiscal management skills that will benefit citizens in keeping the costs of operations at an acceptable level,” he said.

“The accomplishment I’m most satisfied with is that I’m well respected by the men and women I work with every day,” he added. “They seek me out for advice on a personal and professional level. That’s quite an accomplishment as a leader, to be someone they trust.”