The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department has elaborated further on a change that department is making in the design of the sheriff’s badge.

The Rhino Times reported earlier this week that the department is moving from a six-point badge design – which has been in place since at least the early 1970’s – to a five-point badge design.

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Max Benbassat said earlier this week that all patrol officers would be getting the new badges, however, he said later that he misspoke in saying that.  While Roger’s now has the new badge, Benbassat said, there’s currently “no timeline” for getting new badges for the department’s patrol officers and he added that those officers may never get badges with the new design.

“This is really the sheriff’sbadge,” Benbassat said of the new five-star design, adding that, therefore, Guilford County Sheriff Danny Roger’s badge may be different from the one carried by the patrol officers.

Benbassat said the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department was constantly concerned about keeping the costs of its operations down out of respect for taxpayers.  He said that’s true in all areas, not just badges.  He said the design change is currently very limited precisely in order to keep cost down.  For instance, he said, the change is being implemented on paper documents because there is no large cost in doing so.

Benbassat didn’t offer a dollar figure for the new design and for any changes made so far, but he said the expense was minimal since much of the work was done in-house and there had been no major rollout of the design.  According to Benbassat, the cost consciousness of the department will guide any future decisions as to where the new badge iconography is displayed.