Grant County may lose deputies to budget cuts
EPHRATA — Grant County Sheriff’s Office told the county commissioners how 14 deputies and staff could lose their jobs next year due to budget cuts.
A combination of wage increases, insurance increases and loss of revenue could put the office about $900,000 above the $6.5 million budget it had last year. The number was announced at a budget hearing for the sheriff’s office and the jail with the Grant County commissioners Tuesday afternoon.
The commissioners asked each of the departments to provide budgets equal to their 2010 budgets for next year.
About $490,000 of the increased expenditures come from wage increases and increased insurance costs, Chief Deputy Dave Ponozzo said.
“Even with eliminating two (full time employees) we see a net gain of $207,345 in wages and benefits alone,” he wrote in a letter to the commissioners. “Most of our decreased revenue comes by way of reduced grants and outside sheriff’s office dollars and lost revenue from the City of Mattawa as they are no longer utilizing the services of our office.”
Along with the other losses, Commissioner Richard Stevens said they are considering returning roughly $400,000 from the public works department back to the sheriff’s office. The money is used to fund the five-deputy road division.
“The money was for roads and we got 2,600 miles of them that need resurfaced,” he said. “It is on a short-term basis because we had some extra money, but the extra money is going to go away.”
Ponozzo said he doesn’t envy the commissioners’ position and this is the hardest meeting he’s been to.
“Not just for budget, but for anything in this chair and in my head, I realize it’s outside of my control, (but) in my heart I feel responsible for it in some capacity,” he said. “The reality of it is if you look at this bottom line and compare it to 2010 and where you’d like us to be, we’re looking at 10, 14 employees we’re going to have to lay off.”
Sheriff Frank DeTrolio said depending on how many people the office has to lay off, it is already 11 positions below where it should be.
“You add that to the mix, that’s a lot of people that we’re down,” he said.
The chief deputy continued, saying if the office could do the job for $6.5 million, they should be doing it, but at some point the office can’t run on less funds.
“I know there’s some discussion and some comments made that I had indicated that we’re going to cut services to punish the public, and I by no means would do that,” Ponozzo said. “At some point, we can’t provide the service we provide today for the same dollars.”
Stevens agreed, saying he doesn’t feel they need to make cuts to punish the public and they need to do the best they can with the money they have.
“We try to maintain all the services with what we have, but if we don’t have it, it’s very difficult,” he said. “The commissioners don’t print money.”
The commissioner continued saying they could try to put the 0.3 percent sales tax increase for law enforcement on the ballot, but it would get defeated.
“You’re right, it’s going to get defeated,” Ponozzo said. “I’m not saying we need to do this to punish the public, but at some point services are going to get cut. Until they don’t have the service they think they need, they’re never going to approve the 0.3 percent (sales tax increase.)”
Ponozzo said he didn’t expect the commissioners to give him an answer right away, but wanted them to give him a hard limit to his budget as soon as possible.
“Especially when it comes to cop shops right now, a lot of time at the end of the year people are out there hiring,” he said. “We need to give them as much notice as possible.”