AUBURN – The squabble over who controls hiring in the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department – Sheriff Guy Desjardins or the County Commission – may be settled today with attorneys.

If not, the issue may finally be decided by a judge.

Attorneys on both sides hope to attend a commission meeting today, the first since Desjardins decided to begin searching for a new nighttime patrol deputy. It’s a job that has drawn controversy because the three-member commission repeatedly stalled over the budgeted job and then killed it.

When they meet at 1:30 p.m., commissioners will be armed with a three-page written opinion from their longtime attorney, Bryan Dench of Auburn.

“The law is very, very clear,” said Dench. “There is no question in my mind that the sheriff is not on solid ground.”

The right to hire or not rests with the commission, he said.

“It is the County Commissioners, and the Commissioners alone, who have the authority to establish or eliminate positions for county government,” Dench wrote in his opinion.

Furthermore, just because the money for the job was set aside by the Budget Committee, there is no rule that it must be spent, he argued.

“A moment’s reflection makes this obvious,” he wrote. If the Budget Committee’s decision were a mandate, Androscoggin County offices who saved money rather than spent it might be breaking the law, said Dench, the county’s attorney since 1980.

“It’s a hollow argument,” charged Jonathan Berry, Desjardins’ lawyer.

A litigator who has worked for several Maine sheriffs, Berry said the opinion neglects to recognize that a sheriff is more than another department head.

“Their position seems to be business as usual,” Berry said. “We’re not talking about the way things have been.”

Desjardins has argued that he needs the officer to bolster nighttime patrols. After midnight, only two officers cover the county. Eight towns have no other police protection.

However, commissioners refused to fill the job, citing worry that the state might not give the county $180,000 in expected revenue.