Sheriff’s Department facing major cutbacks

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

MATHENY

Faced with $173,000 cut out of his budget, Sheriff Jackie Matheny said he will try to “do the best he can” with the diminished funding this year.

“It’s disappointing to say the least,” Matheny said of the county commission’s decision to cut the sheriff’s department and jail by $173,000. “It’s something we’re just going to have to do.”

The sheriff’s department will operate under $1.76 million budget during the upcoming year. The jail also has a $1.76 million budget.

Tops on the cut list will be sheriff’s department vehicles as no new vehicles are budgeted for this year. Normally, the department purchases two or three each year. Matheny is concerned the moratorium on new vehicles will cause maintenance costs to rise above this year’s levels.

Matheny noted the real problem may arise if there are unforeseen costs to operating the department during the coming year. Specifically, Matheny said higher inmate medical expenses could hamstring his budget.

“If we have a bigger year for inmate medical, that will destroy our budget,” Matheny said. “All it takes is one big bill for something like a heart attack and that’s tens of thousands of dollars which we’ve got to pay. This past year we had an average of 202 inmates per day, but that’s went up every year so it’s hard to predict what the inmate levels will be.”

Matheny said there is also less money to replace equipment that could go bad.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed that nothing tears up,” Matheny said. “If we have a washer-dryer or fridge that goes out, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

The cutbacks will also limit the extra things the sheriff’s department does, Matheny said, noting he will have to cut corners.

“Things like extra patrols at the fair and working the bicycle race will be difficult,” Matheny said. “I just don’t see how we can do those things on this budget.”

Matheny said he does not envision a year like last when the department did have an excess of about $100,000.

“Last year we had two officers on active military duty and we didn’t replace their positions plus we had a lot of jail personnel turnover so there weren’t salary top outs,” Matheny said. “It’s unlikely this will happen again so this is money we won’t have this year.”

While saying the budget crunch will make things tight, Matheny said it will not necessitate the reduction of the sheriff’s force.