AUBURN – A proposal for six layoffs inside the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department – including one civil division deputy and five jail workers – is being condemned by top administrators and Sheriff Ronald Gagnon.

“It’s a safety issue,” Gagnon said Monday. “We don’t know what will happen if this goes through.”

In the jail, overcrowding and increasing incidents of violence preclude reducing the numbers of guards, Gagnon and Jail Administrator John Lebel said. And cutting the civil division’s only full-time deputy would merely mean the work would be passed to others, who are already overworked.

“I asked for two more patrolmen this year,” Gagnon said. “That was the first thing (the commissioners) cut.”

The layoffs were targeted by the three-member County Commission, which has been working to cut spending.

Calls to two commissioners – Patience Johnson and Constance Cote – went unanswered Monday. A message from the third, Elmer Berry, said the commission would refrain from making any comment until its proposal is published.

However, Gagnon believes the commission has been working to meet the tax cap created by LD 1, passed by voters in 2004.

“We don’t blame the commissioners,” he said. “We blame LD 1.”

His hope is that the nine-member Budget Committee, which is scheduled to begin scrutinizing the budget on Nov. 1, votes to increase the cap and keep the positions.

“We’re not sure how it’s going to affect us,” said Capt. Raymond Lafrance, who runs the patrol division. “These functions still need to get done. Things are going to suffer.”

The problem has been brewing for weeks.

On Oct. 4, county commissioners directed Gagnon to cut nine jobs. He refused.

“I am convinced that such a proposal significantly endangers the welfare and safety of inmates, staff and the public; and would be irresponsible for me to quietly acquiesce to such a proposal,” Gagnon wrote the commission on Oct. 5. “I am unwilling to accept any reduction in Sheriff’s Department personnel.”

One week later, the commission responded with a proposal to cut six people instead of nine. The Oct. 12 letter was signed by only two commissioners. Patience Johnson did not sign.

Her stepson, Eric Samson, would be among the people affected by the change. His position as the jail’s program director would be cut. Gagnon’s opponent for re-election, Guy Desjardins, announced two weeks ago that Samson was his pick for chief deputy.

Samson’s position had been funded by the inmates of the jail, from money raised by their purchase of telephone calls and items from the jail’s small store.

With that fund dwindling, the position, which organizes alternative sentencing programs, became particularly precarious, Lebel said.

But like all the positions on the list, the jail administrator said he is uncomfortable with the prospect of the job vanishing.

Someone else will have to do the work, which has saved the county many thousands of dollars by keeping nonviolent people out of the crowded jail.

Gagnon said he plans to meet with the union on Tuesday.

If layoffs go through, some people in the targeted jobs would likely be demoted. People would be laid off on the basis of seniority.

The remaining jobs would all get more difficult, Lafrance said

“It affects everyone,” Lafrance said. “It affects the entire operation of the Sheriff’s Department.”

Androscoggin County Jail

2006 expenditures: $3.60 million

2007 proposal (with cuts): $3.71 million

Sheriff’s office

2006 expenditures: $1.43 million

2007 proposal (with cuts): $1.44 million

“I am convinced that such a proposal significantly endangers the welfare and safety of inmates, staff and the public; and would be irresponsible for me to quietly acquiesce to such a proposal.”
Sheriff Ronald Gagnon
Proposal by Androscoggin County Commission would cut six positions from the Sheriff’s Department.