County leaders hear pain of cuts

Spokane County leaders got a better idea Monday of what cuts of $3.2 million to the 2009 budget would do to staffing.

The county is expected to freeze vacant positions or lay off about 30 employees, Spokane County CEO Marshall Farnell said.

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, who has been asked to cut $1.25 million, told the commissioners he might be forced to cut as many as 10 positions at the jail and six from the Sheriff’s Office. And the office would still face the overtime and unexpected medical costs that led him to ask last month for another $954,000 to balance the 2008 budget.

Under the current outlook, “by May we will have run through our overtime. We will be preset for budget failure,” he said. “We know going in that the budget will be broke.”

To save money, the sheriff is also looking to cut the entire motorcycle patrol, the department’s helicopter and the riot-control team.

Also, several of the department’s deputies were hired with help from state and federal grants. Some of those grants will require the county to pay back $75,000 per deputy if they are not retained, Knezovich said.

And in addition to the grant issues, the county is required by federal law to have enough jailers to keep staff and inmates safe. If the county falls below those levels, it could face civil rights lawsuits, Knezovich said.

“I guess the bottom line is there is no place to cut in the jail unless you cut bodies, and that puts us in jeopardy,” he said.

Commissioners Todd Mielke and Mark Richard pointed out that the county has authorized the Sheriff’s Office to make 24 hires since 2004, when it went $400,000 over budget because of overtime.

After making 17 hires, the Sheriff’s Office is now about $700,000 over budget because of overtime.

Richard said that if all the personnel cuts came from departments other than the Sheriff’s Office, the county could have to eliminate an entire department.

“It’s hard to exempt 70 percent of your budget and take it all off the back of the other 30 percent,” Mielke said.

The Building and Planning Department, which this year eliminated 20 positions, will ask to raise land-use fees so it can break even on services it provides.

Mielke said with a combined staff of 225 in the jail, the proposed cuts – not counting five unfilled positions – would amount to about a 2 percent reduction: “When the public hears about a 2 percent reduction … I don’t think that falls beyond their expectations.”