Sheriff struggles with staffing and money woes

The 2005 budget request allows the department to stay even to where it is now.
WARREN -- The Trumbull County Sheriff's Department's budget request for 2005 seeks to keep what is has, not to make up what's already been lost.
Sheriff's representatives made their case Tuesday to county commissioners for a $9 million budget, similar to this year's. That's $6 million for the jail and $3 million for the civil division and road patrols.
But Ernie Cook, chief of operations, also laid out what the department no longer has:
*The detective division has been abolished. This unit of eight personnel used to investigate homicides, rapes, robberies, burglaries and child abuse.
*Thirty-two positions have not been filled. These include jobs from clerk and janitor all the way up to detective sergeant and captain of detectives. This also includes 15 deputies.
*The patrol division is short by seven. Sometimes this results in two deputies covering 400 square miles with a population of 50,000.
No one has been laid off -- all of these reductions were done through staff attrition, Cook noted.
Contracts at risk
One option for saving about $50,000 discussed Tuesday was closing the department's Panther Avenue annex, which now houses the road patrol division and 20 staffers, and moving that division downtown to the county jail facility. This would get all operations under one roof, and then the Panther building -- which decades ago was the county engineer's garage -- could be sold.
"We would totally support that move," Cook said, noting that adequate space downtown could be arranged.
Those deputies shouldn't be in the building much, anyway, he noted. "We want them out on patrol," predominantly in northern Trumbull County.
Cook's budget narrative to the commissioners stressed that the sheriff's budget has been reduced for the last three years, and that any more cuts would result in the loss of that patrol division, closing of a part of the jail, and the loss of federal prisoner contracts.
In a move to increase revenues, the sheriff's department contracted with the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service, and increased the per diem rate for Warren prisoners, which has brought in $2.1 million so far this year.
"I can't overemphasize that these contracts cannot be turned on and off like a light switch," Cook maintained.
"Loss of these contracts could be permanent once additional personnel cuts are made, resulting in a loss of millions of dollars in revenue."
Commissioners need to reduce the county's budget from about $38 million to about $32 million, to address expiration of one of the county's sales taxes.