{"id":6691,"date":"2013-11-16T19:14:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-17T00:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6691"},"modified":"2013-11-16T19:54:55","modified_gmt":"2013-11-17T00:54:55","slug":"sheriff-responds-to-county-commission-about-budget-lcc-2013-11-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/sheriff-responds-to-county-commission-about-budget-lcc-2013-11-14.html","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff responds to County Commission about budget @ LCC 2013-11-14"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n<\/a>\r\nLTE in the VDT today. -jsq\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\nSheriff’s Response to “budget woes”\r\n

\r\nThe Sheriff’s Office has received a lot of criticism in the last\r\nseveral months. It appears to be the fashionable thing these days\r\nand an easy target. Sheriff Prine did not receive an invitation to\r\n\r\nthe Chairman’s personal property<\/a>\r\nfor a review of the county’s budget\r\nand criticism of the Sheriff’s budget in particular. There are some\r\nfacts that have not been reported\r\n\r\nby the Valdosta Daily Times<\/a>,\r\nwhich may or may not have been provided.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nFirst it should be noted that the Sheriff’s Office general fund\r\nbudget was reduced from last year’s budget by $171,306.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\n This was\r\nbefore another $130,492 was taken away in August as a result of\r\nshift in\r\n\r\ntraffic citation processing<\/a>\r\nresponsibilities\r\n\r\nto the Clerk’s Office<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nA closer look at some of the specific line items targeted for\r\ncriticism will show that those line items cannot be judged without\r\nfurther information. The DARE supplies line item is at 99%. Supplies\r\nfor the DARE program are bought before the school year begins in\r\nAugust. Yes that line is expended with no further expenditures\r\nexpected in this fiscal budget. Education and Training is another\r\nline item where expenditures are encumbered at the time that the\r\ntraining is scheduled — not when the training event actually\r\nhappens which may be months later. This is $11,500 budgeted for\r\ntraining for the entire Sheriff’s Office. “Rent\/lease” is an $8,000\r\nline item; but 87.73% sounds better for the critics. Again this is\r\nanother line item that has contracts that are paid yearly—not\r\nmonthly. “Subscriptions”—a $1500 line item that refers to\r\ndirectories and legal organs that are resources for the Sheriff’s\r\nOffice to effectively function.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe “Sheriff’s Enforcement budget” is at 36.78%. Not exactly what we\r\nwould consider as being “worse” than any other part of the larger\r\nbudget.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe Jail is not a “department”; it is actually a significant part of\r\nwhat the Sheriff’s constitutional responsibility is. It actually has\r\nthree (3) budgets. The General Fund—Jail budget is $6,486,397.\r\nThis is where the salaries of over 100 employees is budgeted as well\r\nas a large part of the cost of the more than 600 inmates that are\r\nhoused, fed and receive basic medical care is accounted for. The\r\nCommissary budget is a revenue generating account and has a budget\r\nof $624,924. The Jail Operations Fund is another revenue generating\r\naccount that has a budget of $660,193.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nCurrently the whole Sheriff’s Office budget expenditures for FY 2014\r\nare at 37%. With two weeks into November it is exactly where it is\r\nexpected to be.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nNow also consider that the Sheriff’s Office also generates some\r\nrevenue. Bond forfeitures are returned to the general fund of the\r\ncounty. All funds generated from inmate commissary sales are\r\nreturned to the jail fund that helps off-set some of the cost of\r\ninmate housing as well as inmate housing fees charged to other\r\nagencies. Charges for the service of civil papers are returned to\r\nthe general fund of the county. The actual cost to taxpayers is less\r\nthan the $17,138,334 that is budgeted to provide all of these\r\nservices.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe budget process is more than just picking and choosing a few line\r\nitems to look at. It is a complex and evolving tool used to measure\r\nthe expenditures and revenues of the cost of providing services.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe Sheriff’s Office budget has been impacted like all businesses\r\nhave with rising costs of health care which has had a significant\r\nincrease over the last several fiscal years. As a result, other line\r\nitems have been reduced to unreasonable expectations. And the county\r\ngoverning authority still refuses to budget one penny for the\r\noperations cost of the Regional Crime Lab that the City of Valdosta\r\nallows the Sheriff’s Office to utilize and that all citizens benefit\r\nfrom.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt is a shame that this has been made an issue by those who wish to\r\ndiscredit Sheriff Prine for the sake of political change. The\r\nSheriff’s Office has certain responsibilities and mandates that have\r\nto be financed. A jail that averages more than 600 inmates per day;\r\nthat these inmates are fed, housed, clothed and provided basic\r\nmedical care. The Sheriff maintains a Patrol Division that responds\r\nto more than 2000 calls per month. There are criminal investigators,\r\nnarcotics investigators and court services that serve all of Lowndes\r\nCounty. The Sheriff has committed to making sure that every county\r\nschool has a school resource officer. There are over 200 employees\r\nwho give their days, nights, weekends and holidays to serve this\r\ncommunity in an agency that processes an average of 18,000 subpoenas\r\nand 4,000 arrest warrants annually. When one stops to consider that\r\nthe Sheriff maintains all of these services and more, you have to\r\nvalue that service from a larger picture.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Bill<\/a>\r\n\r\nDon’t let the rhetoric fool you. The public has been given a\r\none-sided view of a much bigger picture. There is a tremendous\r\namount of accountability that goes into every dollar spent and the\r\ncounty finance director and county manager is a large part of that\r\nprocess.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe Sheriff’s Office expects to receive all blame for a pending\r\nincrease in your taxes. But the truth is much broader than one\r\nagency’s budget.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n-Sheriff Chris Prine\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LTE in the VDT today. -jsq Sheriff’s Response to “budget woes” The Sheriff’s Office has received a lot of criticism in the last several months. It appears to be the fashionable thing these days and an easy target. Sheriff Prine did not receive an invitation to the Chairman’s personal property for a review of the […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,72,20,88,52,3,133],"tags":[7236,381,1395,8701,8699,10,8730,727,8702,8710,91,12,7,8734,546,7235,652,8724,8700,6,8742],"class_list":["post-6691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-incarceration","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-splost","category-transparency","category-vdt","tag-14-november-2013","tag-budget","tag-chris-prine","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-incarceration","tag-jail","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-retreat","tag-retreat-work-session","tag-sheriff","tag-splost","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1JV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6694,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691\/revisions\/6694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}