{"id":97622,"date":"2018-10-07T14:30:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T20:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-sheriffs-office-tightens-belt-during-lean-times\/"},"modified":"2018-10-07T14:30:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T20:30:40","slug":"la-plata-county-sheriffs-office-tightens-belt-during-lean-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-sheriffs-office-tightens-belt-during-lean-times\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office tightens belt during lean times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"La
La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith swears in deputies and civilians en masse in January 2015, shortly after he took office. In the last three years, the Sheriff\u2019s Office has saved a cumulative $2 million to adjust for lower county revenues.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office, like many other county departments, operates year-to-year on a declining budget. But innovative funding and careful cuts have kept the Sheriff\u2019s Office under budget since Sean Smith took over in 2014, county commissioners say.<\/p>\n

Smith said he has been able to keep the Sheriff\u2019s Office under budget for the past three years, saving the county a cumulative $2 million since fiscal year 2016, when he wrote his first budget.<\/p>\n

To do that, the Sheriff\u2019s Office has pursued revenue from leasing jail space to other agencies and applying for grants. The office also cut unneeded positions in the department while also upgrading the department with $300,000 worth of equipment from a federal government program that provides surplus military equipment to law enforcement agencies without charge.<\/p>\n

\"Smith\"
Smith<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cOur budgets remain fairly flat, but we have been eliminating positions where necessary,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

The amount of money budgeted for employee salaries for the patrol division has decreased from $2.18 million in 2016 to $1.85 million in 2018. And for detentions, the $3.09 million budgeted for salaries in 2016 decreased to $2.9 million in 2018.<\/p>\n

When Smith inherited his position almost four years ago, the Sheriff\u2019s Office had 137 positions, most of which were filled. In the past three years, Smith has whittled that number down to 128, a number he hopes to reduce by three in upcoming weeks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that the Sheriff\u2019s Office is cutting positions, but rather just deciding not to fill or fund them, Smith said. The problem the Sheriff\u2019s Office is having is that its wages are not competitive with other agencies in Southwest Colorado, Smith said. That\u2019s because of the tight budget the department has been operating with.<\/p>\n

\"A
A La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputy patrols the jail in November 2015. The Sheriff\u2019s Office has saved money by leaving some positions empty, but also raised money by renting out space in the jail. The Sheriff\u2019s Office is looking at ways to give pay raises to help with retainment and recruitment.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Starting compensation for a La Plata Sheriff\u2019s deputy is $22.10 per hour. Durango Police Department offers a starting wage of $24.75, and Montrose offers $25 per hour to its recruits.<\/p>\n

\"Lachelt\"
Lachelt<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWhat\u2019s been hard with our (Sheriff\u2019s) Office is retention; our salary levels are really low,\u201d said Gwen Lachelt, county commissioner. \u201cOnce they get trained and have a couple of years under their belt, they move on to other jurisdictions where they can make a larger salary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith has proposed cutting three positions from the special-operations department, a fund that\u2019s been increasing since its inception in 2016, according to the county budget. Cutting those positions would give the Sheriff\u2019s Office the latitude to give raises to 60 of its employees, Smith said. That decision has yet to be approved by the Board of County Commissioners.<\/p>\n

\"Blake\"
Blake<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cAnytime you cut your budget, it\u2019s painful, especially when you\u2019re not filling positions that really need to be filled,\u201d said County Commissioner Brad Blake. \u201cWhen you\u2019re not filling positions due to the budget or you have a waiting period, that\u2019s a painful conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But eliminating positions accounts for only about half of the money the Sheriff\u2019s Office has trimmed in the past few years \u2013 the other half comes from a reduction in discretionary spending, Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s picking to buy this or not buy that,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy; we have a growing department.\u201d<\/p>\n

The department also raised $110,000 to help fund overtime pay, Smith said. That helps the department stay within budget while also giving officers the opportunity for overtime if they want it.<\/p>\n

But budget cuts in the Sheriff\u2019s Office cures only a symptom of a larger problem, Lachelt said: The county is running out of money<\/a>. La Plata County has one of the lowest property tax rates in the state, a revenue source that doesn\u2019t produce enough to fund county activities, Lachelt said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to take a serious look as the county and have a meaningful conversation about where our property tax level is and where it needs to be to meet our growing population,\u201d Lachelt said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing more with less for a really long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

bhauff@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

department has cut positions and sought new revenue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1901,1526],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-la-plata-county-sheriff","tag-taxation-and-budget"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97622","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=97622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97622"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}