FARMINGTON – Franklin County commissioners debated the merits of the Sheriff’s and Corrections departments’ budget requests for almost two hours Tuesday.
Surrounded by budget committee members, Sheriff Dennis Pike and Chief Deputy Ray Meldrum were under fire for several requested increases.
What appeared to be a 9 percent increase in wages for full-time deputies turned out to include overtime wages, which were not a separate line item. According to Meldrum, deputies will not receive any wage increases other than seniority step increases built into their contracts.
Both commissioners and budget committee members wanted an accounting of overtime costs, which are generated from a variety of events, including special details and coverage for training. Special details, like the Farmington Fair, usually bring revenue to the county but cannot be put back into the personnel budget, but rather into the general fund. However, some details, paid by federal grants, do go back into the wage budget. By budget time last year, the Sheriff’s Department had gone over the 2004 wage budget due to overtime wages.
Meldrum read an accounting of this year’s overtime hours to date – 198 hours in drug-eradication details, 68 hours in emergency call-outs, more than 300 hours beyond regular shifts for incident resolution, and 924 hours for filling shifts of deputies who were out sick or for other reasons. According to Pike, the deputies’ contract requires the department to offer any available overtime to full-time deputies before using part-time reserve officers.
“We’re running as close to the bone as possible,” Pike remarked. He can’t predict when overtime may occur, he added.
“It would be nice if I had a crystal ball,” he said.
Commissioners voted to reduce part-time deputies’ wages to $20,000, down $10,000 from the requested amount, which was the same as this year’s budget but which officials do not anticipate spending.
They also voted to reduce the department’s requested gas budget from $105,000 to $85,000.
With the fluctuations in gas prices this year, the department has already overdrawn its $32,000 gas budget by $10,000.
Commissioner Gary McGrane said the gas budget request troubled him because it incorporates an increase in cost but factors in no mileage reduction.
“It represents a very bourgeois attitude,” he said.
Mary Wright, sitting in for Stephan Bunker of Farmington, said she was not happy with a policy that allows deputies to drive their vehicles for personal use. And commissioners and committee members were also curious about gas mileage for sport utility vehicles, which are used by some deputies and which get between 12 and 14 miles per gallon as opposed to 21 by traditional cruisers.
“What can I do? If you don’t like it, change it,” Meldrum said.
Commissioners did, voting unanimously to reduce the gas budget by $20,000.
By contrast, the two county jail budgets, though scrutinized by commissioners, were approved as requested at $1,043,231 for prisoner support and $100,000 for Department of Corrections operations.
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