Morgan County voters should be furious that it took an appointed federal judge to correct a problem that local elected officials had every opportunity to solve.

U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon tossed Sheriff Greg Bartlett in jail for pocketing state and federal money while “failing to provide a nutritionally adequate diet” to inmates at the county jail.

Judge Clemon crafted the sanction, for the sheriff’s contempt of a 2001 order, carefully. Morgan County was a defendant, and Judge Clemon could have awarded monetary sanctions against the county. That would have hurt taxpayers, though, and he instead aimed the penalty at the person most culpable, Sheriff Bartlett.

His targeted approach, however, should not relieve Morgan County commissioners of embarrassment.

Daily reporter Sheryl Marsh has written numerous articles about Mr. Bartlett’s profiteering. Taking advantage of a 1939 law, he has managed to enrich himself by keeping expenditures on inmate food well below $1.75 per day. As Judge Clemon concluded, it does not take a dietician to figure out that is not enough for a nutritional diet — especially when the sheriff pocketed $95,000 of the food money in 2008.

State Rep. Ronald Grantland, D-Hartselle, recognized the problem and offered a solution. If the County Commission would pass a resolution of support, he said in January 2008, he would introduce legislation increasing Mr. Bartlett’s salary to $100,000. The bill would have eliminated in Morgan County the crude state law that lets the sheriff keep the leftovers.

The County Commission, buckling to pressure from Mr. Bartlett, would not pass the resolution. Only former Commissioner Stacy George supported the proposal.

The commission’s decision now has Morgan County plastered on newspapers and computers around the nation. Rather than solve a problem they fully understood, they left the job to Judge Clemon.

We applaud Judge Clemon’s ruling.

While the sheriff struggles with being the sole target of Judge Clemon’s order, the Morgan County Commission — apparently unmoved by humanitarian issues — needs at least to recognize the peril its inaction could have caused to county finances. Judge Clemon is out of patience. He has the authority to exact financial sanctions against the county.

After one night in federal prison, the sheriff came around to the judge’s thinking and purged himself of contempt of court. Now the commission should do what common sense has long dictated. It should pass a unanimous resolution requesting state legislation to eliminate the sheriff’s ability to profit from the deprivation of those under his care.

The sorry mess here should give legislators statewide reason to stop the leftover food money from going into sheriffs’ pockets.