Budget Constraints Threaten Public Safety

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“I have drawn the line in the sand on staffing levels.”

Citizens crowded the conference room at the courthouse on Wednesday to witness for themselves the Sheriff’s Office portion of the county’s budget hearings. Some had legal pads and pens to jot questions down, while others leaned forward in chairs eager to hear the discussion. The room was a flurry of murmurs, anticipating the hearing. After the noise settled down and Chairman J.C. Sanford called the hearing to order, he gave the floor to Sheriff Stacy Nicholson.

Nicholson assertively gave his budget report to the Board of Commissioners, requesting an increase to his budget for next year. According to its budget proposal, The Sheriff’s Department seeks a budget increase of $118,300. The Sheriff said that the increase is primarily for two items. Half of the cost will go to fuel expenses and the other half to changing out the radio systems, due to new federal regulations.

Earlier this year, the Sheriff sought to save fuel costs by prohibiting out-of-county patrolman to take their cars home.

“The low point of my career as Sheriff of this county,” Nicholson said, “was when I took take-home cars away from my out-of-town deputies; I lost three deputies the week I did that.”

He explained that the deputies could not afford to work in Gilmer County if they did not use the patrol cars for commuting purposes.

During his presentation at the Budget Hearing, Nicholson also explained that the Sheriff’s Office will have to comply with new federal regulations. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is splitting the radio frequency used by the department. According to Nicholson, the split will require new equipment and a contract for the new frequency for the entire office, at a cost of approximately $40,000. These changes must be in place by January 1st 2013.

Nicholson admitted that he was over budget, primarily in fuel cost. In addition, though, the Sheriff’s Office did not get its expected revenue this year from an earlier plan to house Fulton County inmates in the Gilmer County Jail. The Sheriff said that Gilmer does have a signed contract for the arrangement with Fulton County, but Fulton’s preference is to use jails in the North Georgia region with a greater capacity to hold inmates. Where Gilmer can only house 20 additional inmates, other counties in the regions, such as Hall, can house as much as 200. The competition with jails with greater capacity has put Gilmer County further down on the list in such arrangements.

Despite the collapse of the inmate plan, he said that in the past year the county has asked the Sheriff’s Office to cut its budget twice and implied that he can not cut any more from his budget without compromising the safety of the citizens of the county. He said that the Sheriff’s department is already below the minimum requirements for his patrol staff. The requirement, he said, is four patrol-men per 12 hour shift and the county now has 3 per 12 hour shift. With the county’s current financial woes, is it conceivable that the county would ask each department and office to cut a certain percentage, say five or 10 percent across the board, resulting in even deeper cuts for the Sheriff’s Office? When asked this question, Nicholson simply quipped that the BOC would not be allowed to make such cuts, because he said it was illegal. He explained that if the BOC asks to cut his office too deeply, the matter could end up in court. In such a scenario, the Sheriff’s Office would essential sue the county. But, in a recent conversation with FYN Nicholson said,

“I don’t think we’re going there,” adding, however, “I have drawn the line in the sand on staffing levels.”

According to a recent Sheriff’s Association survey, The Gilmer County Sheriff’s Department was already addressing 16 of the 30 items recommended to save costs in the department, Nicholson said. Among these items was limiting overtime by monitoring staff assignments, which Nicholson said the department has been doing diligently since the middle of the year. He also said that the department

“went into this year holding four patrol positions,” and “one detective position.”

The Sheriff said these are positions that were needed, but ones that the department was unable to fill due to budget constraints. In the last two years, the Sheriff’s Office has cut approximately $1.2 million from its budget, Nicholson noted.

The FY12 projected revenue for the Sheriff’s Office, $250,000, remains the same as the FY11 budgeted revenue. The department’s actual revenue from January through the end of September is $206,256.60. However, the FY11 budgeted revenue for the Detention Center was $200,000, where the actual revenue is a mere $32,763.

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