That’s the expected fallout of continued cuts to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
The department is going down 15 deputy positions after its 2010 budget was trimmed by $194,000. In addition, a forensic technician and three office assistant positions are being cut.
Thirteen deputy positions have been vacant over the past year. Some were authorized but unfilled positions in the 2009 budget; others became open after deputies left the agency.
The department still has to trim a deputy and a sergeant position by the end of June, undersheriff Eileen Bisson said last week.
In addition, another seven of the department’s least-tenured deputies face possible layoffs because of budget cutbacks in University Place and Edgewood. Both cities contract with the Sheriff’s Department for law enforcement services and have deputies patrolling their streets.
The cities are trimming their funding for the work by more than $1.5 million.
Sheriff Paul Pastor and his staff are studying ways to deal with the loss of the deputy positions.
“We are not going to be doing more with less,” Pastor said recently. “We will be doing less with less.”
The sheriff said he’s committed to keeping around-the-clock coverage in the Mountain, Foothills and Peninsula detachments. Other deputies have been moved to meet minimum staffing requirements of six deputies and one sergeant per shift in the unincorporated central part of the county.
Pastor said it could take deputies longer to respond to 911 calls, plus deputies and detectives will put less time into property crimes, traffic problems and public order issues.
“We will concentrate on the highest priority emergency calls,” he said. “A whole lot of other things will not get attention.”
Because of the nationwide recession and declines in sales tax and other revenue, the Pierce County Council cut the 2010 general fund budget by 7 percent, to $269.3 million. That budget led to more than 300 job cuts countywide and raised fees.
Pastor’s budget last year was about $59 million. It was cut by 0.3 percent, to about $58.8, million for 2010. The department’s total staff – commissioned officers, clerical staff members and employees contracted to work in University Place, in Edgewood and with Pierce Transit – went to 368 from 389.
Of the 15 deputy positions cut this year, six had been authorized positions from the 2008 budget that were pushed to last year, Bisson said. The positions ultimately were eliminated last March.
In the months since, seven positions have been vacated through attrition. One was that of deputy Kent Mundell, who was killed in a shootout with a domestic violence suspect Dec. 21.
Pastor is down to cutting two jobs – a deputy and a sergeant – by June 30. He hopes that can be done through attrition – not layoffs.
“I know the county is in bad financial shape,” Pastor said.
“If you are concerned about community safety, removing 15 deputies from us is not the way to do it.”
County Councilwoman Barbara Gelman, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, said the sheriff makes the budget decisions.
“He really has control over what to do with his staff,” she said. “We can’t do that for him.”
Because of the budget cuts in University Place and Edgewood, the eight least-tenured deputies in the Sheriff’s Department received layoff notices in mid-December. Two weeks later they got a brief reprieve.
One position was spared through a yearlong federal domestic violence grant. County officials came up with $160,000 to pay the salaries of the other seven for 90 days. That relief ends March 31.
Bisson said department officials have been researching grants and talking with local officials in hopes of finding ways to keep those deputies on longer.
“Those seven positions also will be gone if we are not able to find some other option,” she said.
Stacey Mulick: 253-597-8268
stacey.mulick@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/crime
