The Fountain Hills Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was not affected by an insurance issue that had most posse units in the county temporarily parking their patrol vehicles.

Fountain Hills Posse Commander Jeff Helmakangas told The Times it has been business as usual for the local posse. In fact they have just received a new vehicle from a donor and are working to get it into service.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in a press conference last week that the citizens of Maricopa County will find all volunteer posse programs back on duty following a brief interruption over an insurance issue.

Arpaio said the Sheriff’s Office and members of the County Board of Supervisors were “deluged” by calls from residents from throughout the county after a brief break in service stemming from an insurance coverage question.

According to a statement from the Sheriff’s Office, an office policy was changed in 2012 to comply with a recommendation by county risk management.

That change precluded the Sheriff’s Posse vehicles from being covered under a county-wide insurance plan. That caused a number of posse members, out of an abundance of caution, to briefly park their marked patrol vehicles while Sheriff’s and county government officials worked to correct the problem.

Arpaio explained at last week’s news conference that this policy change was in fact forwarded to Sheriff’s posses back in 2012. But because the policy was not clearly highlighted or verbalized, posse members were unaware how the change should have affected them until recently.

It was when a claim was filed in November of 2013 with county risk management that a review of the policy uncovered the problem. Once the policy conflict became clear, Sheriff’s Office personnel immediately notified all posses about the insurance coverage change.

Subsequently posse members who endeavored to follow this policy and privately insure their vehicles found it would cost over $50,000 per car per year to insure.

Posse units purchase and maintain their own vehicles.

Both Arpaio and County Supervisor Clint Hickman were among those who worked diligently to resolve this problem because they said they both understand the posse’s importance.

“Since I took office in 1993, I promised to build up and use the posse on many different programs,” Arpaio said.

“The posses have played a vital role. They volunteer their time, their money and their energy serving the community. There is no way we could allow this program to stop or be hindered in any way.”

Hickman said, “Our message to posse members is that their insurance coverage will continue as it always has, through the county, while the posse performs its law enforcement duties.”

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Posses have 112 fully- marked patrol vehicles.

Posse volunteers county-wide provided 183,467.5 man hours and saved taxpayers over $7 million in 2013, equivalent to 88 full-time deputies, according to Arpaio.