Ogle restores some of cuts: Sheriff says 18 layoffs still ahead

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OREGON – At a special meeting Friday afternoon, the Ogle County Finance Committee softened the blow to the sheriff’s 2010 budgets, but not enough to eliminate layoffs.

After Sheriff Greg Beitel explained how the more than $1 million in cuts – 15 percent of this year’s budget – the committee made this week would affect sheriff’s department operations, the committee scaled back the cuts to $708,000, or about 10 percent.

The 15 percent budget reduction would have meant laying off 19 full- and eight part-time employers.

The 10 percent in cuts will mean 10 full- and eight part-time workers must go.

“Personally I don’t like the 10 percent,” Beitel said. “You’re gutting the patrol division to five or six deputies, and you’re gutting the detective division to one or two.”

He will be forced to pull deputies off patrol and put them to work at the jail or risk losing $1 million in revenue that comes from boarding federal prisoners for the U.S. Marshal’s Office, Beitel said.

“I’ve talked to the U.S. Marshal’s Office, and they are adamant that staffing levels at our jail cannot go any lower, or they will take their prisoners elsewhere,” he said.

The cuts will come from the five departments Beitel oversees: the Sheriff’s Department, the Ogle County Emergency Management Agency, corrections, building and grounds and emergency communications.

About $6.7 million was budgeted for the five departments in 2009. A cut of 15 percent left the total at $5.7 million; a 10 percent reduction puts it at slightly more that $6 million.

Most of the cuts made Monday came in the wake of the refusal by members of the Fraternal Order of Police to take wage freezes and rollbacks.

The committee has asked all county employees to take wage freezes in light of the county’s dwindling revenues.

Non-union and some union employees agreed; FOP members, who fall under the sheriff’s umbrella, did not.

Beitel said he hopes the FOP and the county board can come to a compromise that will make the layoffs unnecessary.

“These scenarios (the 10 percent and the 15 percent cuts) take our staffing back to what it hasn’t been for more than a decade,” he said. “Our county has grown. The demands on our services are more than they’ve ever been. It’s not safe for the public or for the deputies.”

The county board must approve the budget before the fiscal year ends Nov. 30. The Finance Committee will recommend it to the county board at its Nov. 17 meeting.

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