{"id":102378,"date":"2017-12-19T13:29:59","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T20:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-prepares-for-tighter-budget\/"},"modified":"2017-12-19T13:29:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T20:29:59","slug":"montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-prepares-for-tighter-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-prepares-for-tighter-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office prepares for tighter budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Deputy
Deputy Ted Holland lets third-graders at Kemper Elementary sit in the saddle of a member of the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s mounted patrol unit. The Sheriff\u2019s Office added the unit in 2017.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office is among several departments bracing for the impact of county budget cuts next year.<\/p>\n

The 2018 county budget calls for about $13 million in expenditures, but only predicts about $12 million in revenue. Montezuma County commissioners plan to make up the difference by tapping into reserve funds and cutting support for programs including local libraries, the Cortez Animal Shelter and the Montezuma Community Economic Development Association. The Sheriff\u2019s Office will not see the same loss of funding as other budget categories, but Sheriff Steve Nowlin said the cuts could still make county law enforcement more difficult next year.<\/p>\n

Public safety, which includes funding for the Sheriff\u2019s Office, jail and district attorney, is the largest spending category in the county budget. For 2018, spending is set at $7.4 million, a 4.2 percent increase from 2017. But while most public safety departments will get spending increases, some of the smaller ones will be cut. The emergency management fund will decrease from $85,974 to $82,854, a 3.6 percent decrease, and the $2.3 million jail fund will decrease by about $1,000, or 0.04 percent.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office general fund budget will go up from $2.27 million in 2017 to $2.28 million in 2018, a 0.44 percent increase. Most of the spending increases are for employee wages, software, telephone bills and operating expenses.<\/p>\n

All spending on sheriff\u2019s vehicles, though, has been reduced. Nowlin said the 2018 budget replaces previous spending categories such as fuel and new vehicle purchases with the all-encompassing \u201cfleet management costs\u201d category, set at $203,042.<\/p>\n

That amount will most likely pay for all maintenance on existing patrol vehicles, Nowlin said, but it will not cover the cost of new vehicles. The Sheriff\u2019s Office typically buys two to three new vehicles per year to replace those with more than 100,000 miles on their engines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a safe vehicle to use as an emergency vehicle,\u201d Nowlin said. \u201cMy standard is that when a vehicle gets up to 80,000 miles, it should be due for replacement within a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next year\u2019s budget won\u2019t allow for replacements. But the county is due to submit its last payment for five of its most expensive patrol cars next year, which Nowlin said he expects to free up more money for new vehicles in 2019.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s budget shortfall also means the sheriff\u2019s request to hire more deputies and jail staff has been denied. Nowlin said he may have to reduce the amount of security his department provides at events next year in order to make sure there are enough deputies to patrol the county.<\/p>\n

Statistics gathered by the Sheriff\u2019s Office show that felony crimes in Montezuma County have increased 33 percent since 2013.<\/p>\n

Before the budget was finalized, Detective Lt. Tyson Cox said one of the department\u2019s goals for 2018 was to increase patrols in areas of the county with higher rates of crime, like the southwest corner near County Road G. In a series of public presentations he gave with Undersheriff Vern Knuckles in November, Cox encouraged county residents to help the Sheriff\u2019s Office by reporting crime and suspicious activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf something doesn\u2019t look right, then please drop us a line,\u201d he said. \u201c(Residents) know far more what\u2019s going on in their community than we do \u2026 because we can\u2019t be everywhere at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

The detention center will also be affected, not only by the small decrease in county funding, but also by a lack of state funds. Although the county was awarded a Justice Assistance Grant this year to fund its jail education program, it has not yet received the money, Nowlin said.<\/p>\n

The future of the sheriff\u2019s long-term evidence storage, which is currently located in the old Montezuma County Courthouse, is also in doubt. Nowlin said he still doesn\u2019t know where he will store that evidence if the building is sold next year.<\/p>\n

Despite the county\u2019s gloomy financial outlook, Nowlin said he has confidence in his staff\u2019s ability to overcome challenges. He pointed to some improvements the sheriff\u2019s office made in 2017, such as increased training for deputies and the addition of a mounted patrol program. He said that, despite being short-staffed, he believes the department is better prepared and equipped to handle crime than it was at the beginning of 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll continue to be OK, one way or the other,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll do our best every single day, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

freeze, lower vehicle funding will affect department<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,52,237],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-102378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-law-enforcement","tag-montezuma-county-government"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102378"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=102378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}