Ogle sheriff faces layoffs
OREGON – The most recent round of Ogle County budget cuts will mean layoffs in the sheriff’s department, where union members have refused to accept wage freezes and salary rollbacks.
The county Finance Committee Monday approved a $11.7 million budget for the 2010 general fund, $1.8 million less than this year’s budget.
More than $1 million will come out of the five budgets managed by Ogle County Sheriff Greg Beitel, who oversees spending for the sheriff’s department, corrections, building and grounds, emergency communications, and the county’s Emergency Management Agency.
“I’m not happy,” Beitel said Tuesday. “This means cutting 17 full-time and eight part-time positions. We may have to take patrol officers and put them in corrections. It’s not safe for the public, and it’s not safe for the officers.”
The remaining cuts came from other general fund departments: clerk and recorder; elections; treasurer; health, education and welfare; Regional Office of Education; judiciary; and circuit clerk.
Also, probation; Focus House; assessment; zoning; coroner; state’s attorney; county administrator; information technology; insurance; and finance.
The cuts, combined with $700,000 to be taken from the county reserves, mean the 2010 budget will balance without raising real estate taxes, County Administrator Meggon McKinley said.
“The committee worked hard to see that taxes did not increase,” she said.
The reserve fund had $4.5 million when the 2008 fiscal year ended Nov. 30. Dwindling revenues cut the fund to $1.5 million by June 30, before real estate taxes were paid.
Almost $800,000 of the $1 million in sheriff’s budget cuts were new reductions made Monday night in the wake of the police union’s refusal to accept wage freezes and rollbacks.
The finance committee asked all county employees in August to take wage freezes in the coming year, because less money was coming in, especially from the state.
Nonunion and some union employees agreed to the wage freezes.
Members of the Fraternal Order of Police, who fall under the sheriff’s umbrella, did not.
County board Chairman Ed Rice said FOP members voted to reject the requested concessions to maintain the integrity of their negotiated contracts.
In response, the committee voted Monday to proceed with a budget based on the money available, and to notify the unions by letter how many layoffs that will mean.
Departments in which employees agreed to the wage freezes will be protected from the layoffs, McKinley said.
The FOP represents employees in three bargaining units that fall under the sheriff’s oversight: sergeants and corporals; patrol and corrections officers, investigations and a corrections clerk; and civilian employees, including clerk typists, telecommunicators, switchboard operators, cooks, maintenance personnel and accounting clerks.
FOP members have said they are willing to discuss the issue further, Beitel said.
“I was hoping the two sides would sit down and try to work this out,” he said. “But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”
Union contracts dictate that part-time employees must be laid off first, Beitel said, and full-time workers must be laid off based on seniority.
He’s looking at layoffs in all areas of the operations he oversees – maintenance, clerical, corrections and law enforcement, he said.
Staffing corrections officers at the jail is crucial, he said, because of the federal prisoners housed there.
“I talked to the U.S. Marshal’s office today to explain the budget cuts,” he said. “They told me they were already concerned about our staffing level at the jail, and if it decreases, they will take their prisoners elsewhere.
“That could all go away, and we can’t let that happen. We can’t lose the $1 million they pay us every year to board their prisoners.”
On the other hand, staffing the jail with patrol officers leaves the county unprotected.
“We’ve got four patrol officers on duty now to cover more than 700 square miles and sometimes that’s not enough. The cuts will leave us with three and maybe only two on duty,” Beitel said.
