Saturday, July 12, 2008

Law enforcement lay offs

Late last month the sheriff's office that husband works for laid off a newly graduated class of detention deputies (probably 30) whose 20 week education had been paid for along with salaries by the county (this will be important in a minute). Those deputies were for the most part hired by an adjacent county sheriff's office. This week husband's office laid off another 25 road deputies and bailiffs who again were trained with county money and whose salaries had been paid for a year or more with county money. These deputies are also being hired by the agencies in adjacent counties.

Now you may ask, why is it that husband's office has to lay these people off while other counties seem to have the budget money to hire them? Good question. It seems that unlike the other county commissions who cut their budget according to service needs (5% for law enforcement, 13% for parks, etc) our county commission was lazy and just cut everybody 10% across the board.

So the recreation department lost the same money as police and fire. Maybe the guys who maintain the parks can double fighting crime and fires now.

Meanwhile, the other county also gets 60 new deputies trained by my tax dollars. Who was the genius who thought this was a good plan.

6 comments:

Sonja's Mom said...

#1 - If the Sheriff didn't have so many expensive toys he wouldn't have to lay anyone off.

#2 - I have the name, address and phone number of all the county commissioners if you would like to forward your blog to them.

SonjaB said...

#1 What toys? HCSO and TPD who are hiring our guys have the same or better toys

#2 Maybe you can write a letter for me.

Dave said...

In Georgia, Atlanta has played a similar stupid role for years. It trains officers. They work there for a year or two getting field experience. Then Police and Sheriffs Departments (especially in "greater Metro counties and cities) around the state hire them away for a little more money, and less danger.

SonjaB said...

Husband's office is usually the palce people leave other departments to go to.

Felipa said...

10% across the board wasn't the brightest idea, obviously. Again Thank you Amendment 1 and all those who voted for it, I hope the savings were worth it (note the sarcasm).

Snark Scribe said...

The county where my parents live have a problem with high turn-over of law enforcement. Everyone gets put through the grinder with lots of mandatory overtime, and quits after they get the experience to be hired elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the county is paying overtime salaries, instead of hiring more people.