NORWICH – Rumors have long flown that Chenango County’s public safety employees have been eating meals served in the jail’s kitchen for free, or rather, on the taxpayer’s dime.

Chenango County Personnel Committee Chairman Wayne Outwater, R-Lincklaen, who has presided over the committee for many of his 16 years as supervisor, said recently that he had heard such rumors, too, but didn’t know whether or not they were true.

A couple of anonymous letters to The Evening Sun this winter asked us to investigate whether free meals were being served to employees, and if so, how often and how much money might be saved if the practice were discontinued. Because the county’s elected officials are looking for savings under every crevice within departments and programs in order to combat rising pension and health care costs, we thought we’d take a look.

The rumors are true. But it’s not only Chenango County’s taxpayers who are paying for free lunches – or dinners or breakfasts, as the case may be, depending upon a person’s shift. When the new Public Safety Facility opened on Upper Ravine Road in the Town of Norwich four years ago, it absorbed the Area Agency On Aging’s former kitchen facility and inherited a valuable funding stream for nutritional services from the New York State Office for the Aging.