Tight budgets causing police departments to shrink

The Ironton Tribune is reporting that funding problems are prompting a reduction of law enforcement officers in Lawrence County.

From the story:

Lawrence County law enforcement officers may not be extinct yet, but they might be considered an endangered species.
The ranks of law enforcement officers in Lawrence County these days are thinning.

The entire police department in Athalia was disbanded late last week. South Point and Proctorville have both laid off some of their police officers this year.

While Ironton has not laid off any officers, police chief Bill Garland said his department is woefully understaffed.

The same can be said of Lawrence County Sheriff Tim Sexton, who is must find a way to save his staff from ruin in September, when his budget's salary line item runs out of money.

The newspaper goes on to say that while the county may growing short on law enforcement officers, there is certainly NO shortage of problems.needing their attention.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

Being needed is not something Lawrence County Sheriff Tim Sexton has to worry much about these days. He and his deputies field more than 10,000 calls for help each year and the number is growing.

"Every day we are asked to do more and more and do it when we are understaffed. People have no idea just what all the sheriff's office does. We handle protection orders, warrant service, carry concealed weapons permits, I could go on and on and the list keeps getting longer," Sexton said.

"We are asked to do more and more and there is no additional funding being given to pay for this."

Funding is a serious issue for the sheriff's office right now. The sheriff's office is slated to run out of money for salaries by early September. County officials have said no money is in the county's general fund to cover the roughly $500,000 gap.

Like many local departments, the sheriff's office received COPS grants for several years to help pay for deputies. When that money ran out, the sheriff's budget ran up against a county general fund that was lean and getting leaner by the year. State funding cuts have hurt, too.

Sexton asked for monies from the county's half-percent sales tax to make up the roughly $500,000 shortfall in his salaries line item and was told there was no money available.

While other counties have suffered personnel cuts in their sheriff's offices, Sexton said he is already working with a skeleton crew as it is: Sexton has 15 road patrol deputies that are expected to do just that - patrol the roads - 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That means often, as few as two deputies to patrol 546 square miles of a county that stretches from Miller to the Lawrence-Scioto line in Hamilton Township.

The sheriff's office has 12 corrections officers, two detectives, two cooks, six dispatchers and three clerks - the same number of clerks the office had two decades ago, though the sheriff believes the paperwork has increased.

Sexton pointed out that corrections officers, like road deputies, must guard prisoners 24-hours-a day. Often the jail is overcrowded. The space that was built to house 50 inmates often is crammed with 65 or 70 inmates.

"We're already understaffed," Sexton said. "Are they laying people off in other (county) departments? It's very frustrating when all I hear is 'let's cut the sheriff's office.' ... I know there is not an overabundance of money, but what is it that they don't want me to do? What road do they not want us to patrol? What call don't they want us to respond to? What criminal do they not want us to arrest? What inmate do they not want us to house?"

As was recently reported in Mahoning County, the unfortunate answers so some of these questions there have led to an increase in crime as convicts are released prematurely and causing new problems on the streets of Youngstown.

No matter what county you live in, and no matter how many officers your local departments field, the fact of the matter is that if you are attacked, there is still no guarantee they will arrive in time to do anything other than clean up the mess and gather evidence. As the stories below tragically indicate once again, only you can protect you.