Sheriff's office facing budget shortfalls

The Mineral County Commissioners met with Mineral County Sheriff Hugh Hopwood Wednesday to discuss budget shortfalls and ways to fix funding problems in the Sheriff’s Department.

“What we need to do is come up with a solution to this thing that is not just a band aid that we can count on and part of that is going to be kind of a bitter pill to swallow,” said Hopwood.

The total budget this year for the Mineral Count Sheriff’s Department was around $927,000. Mineral County Commissioner Judy Stang said that this includes an anticipated revenue figure of $692,000 and a subsidy from the county’s General Fund of $225,000.

“You’re not overspending what we allocated, we just don’t have the cash that we anticipated,” Stang said to Hopwood.

The problems with the sheriff’s department budget arose when the anticipated revenue from the sheriff’s department did not meet its projections. So far the department has only taken in around $425,000, and the budget shortfall is threatening to force the department to cut back on staff or take other drastic measures.

“In order to satisfy this budget shortfall, this department would have to change drastically,” said Hopwood.

Hopwood said that the main place they have lost money this year is within their board of prisoners. The sheriff’s department takes in federal and state prisoners for a fee of around $62 per day. Their anticipated revenue for prisoners was $295,000, but this year they have only taken in $148,000.

Hopwood said that if he lays off workers in the prison or dispatch, they will be unable to hold prisoners and this figure will be even lower next year.

“Right now my detention staff and my dispatch staff are adequate, but if I lay people off I’m going to start losing those federal dollars,” Hopwood said.

Hopwood said the last thing he would want to do is lay off police officers.

“What will happen if you start to lay off officers, is the complexion of the Sheriff’s Office as you guys know it is going to start to change,” Hopwood said.

He said that right now there are police officers on duty until 4 or 5 a.m. every day, however, if he cut back there would only be on duty officers until midnight each evening. He added that if he had to call an officer out of his home for an incident, that officer would automatically have to be paid at least three hours overtime.

Hopwood also said that with fewer officers, he is worried that they will become overworked and quit.

Hopwood said that a possible solution to the budget shortfall is speeding tickets.

According to Stang, 50 percent of the money garnered from tickets paid in Mineral County Justice Court goes back into the county.

Hopwood said that in the past he has told his officers that if they see someone speeding on the Interstate 90 to simply call it in to the Montana State Highway Patrol unless it is a particularly egregious speeder.

“I have told the officers, absolutely not will you be out there sitting in the median waiting for a speeder,” Hopwood said.

Hopwood said that he is considering changing that policy partly because the understaffed Highway Patrol often cannot handle these calls and it would bring in more money. He said that he will not tolerate his officers setting up speed traps, but in order to bring in more money he would tell them to pull over speeders if they see them while on the way to another call, as long as they are not delaying something more important.

“What I am frustrated with is that we’re dealing with a system here where we have to resort to things like writing speeding tickets to pay the power,” Hopwood said.

Stang said that she thinks the county will be upset if they start writing more speeding tickets, but she wants Hopwood to do whatever he thinks is necessary to fix the budget.

“I don’t’ want to try to micro manage your budget because I think you do a good job and I’m not sitting in your shoes. I’m just telling you that it’s up to you to come up with a plan,” Stang said.

Stang said that the sheriff’s office is the only department in the county that is over budget this year.

Hopwood told commissioners that he plans to work on cutting back costs wherever he can and submit a new budget to them this week.