Jerry Miller
The comments below are mine as an individual Commissioner. I do not speak for the Board but as an individual Board member. My comments are also not intended to criticize our Sheriff or the Department in any way but rather to shed some light on the financial realities we face. Questions arising from these comments will not be answered on social media. I felt obligated to offer my comments even though I’ve been in office less than 8 weeks.
The Pike County Sheriff’s Department is well-funded when viewed as dollars per population or dollars as a percentage of overall budget. This years’ department budget is approximately 3.7 million which represents 37% of the General Fund budget of 10 million. When compared to other county sheriff’s departments with similar population and demographics, Pike County ranks highly in percentage of the total budget by an average of nearly 10% more than comparable counties.
Part of the issue is that substantial increases in budget started in 2016 as a result of the Union Hill murders, peaking in 2017 at more than 5 million. This was after the overwhelming effort and responsibility of helping BCI with the investigation in 2016 and one deputy had been assigned to represent the department during the investigation. What hasn’t been made clear to taxpayers and perhaps the majority of the men and women in uniform is that those additional budget funds came from county ‘savings’, not annual revenues (which have actually decreased by over 1 million in the same time frame). In short, the savings or cushion the Pike County General fund had in 2015 of over 7 million dollars will be at or near zero after this fiscal year.
It bears mentioning that no amount of protests results in any additional dollars being added to the General fund. There will likely be those who insist Pike County build a jail to reduce prisoner transport costs. This seems logical until you scrutinize the numbers. Not only would it be a very large sum of money, that we don’t have, but annual operating expense would far outpace the savings of no longer having to transport prisoners as we do today. As in most financial matters there are economies of scale that could make a jail financially feasible. As an example, if a 500 bed jail were built and all cells occupied by our own prisoners, as well as those from surrounding counties, there’s a case to be made. I’ve been told Pike County has had offers from several surrounding counties to take over their jails because they’re so expensive to run with so few cells. It’s a catch 22, build a small jail and potentially bankrupt the county or build a large jail and potentially bankrupt the county getting it built and waiting for cells to fill up. The first scenario is very real and the second scenario is a risk that can’t be taken when we’re on the brink of financial insolvency.
There are options to increase revenue; Tax increases. My personal opinion is that unless and until we can demonstrate that we can operate within our means that’s simply not an option I believe Pike county citizens want.
The present Board of Commissioners of which I am a part doesn’t have a choice but to reduce spending of your tax dollars in order to provide the bare minimum of services those funds are intended for. Whether it’s the Clerk of Courts, Probate Court, County Court, Common Pleas Court, Pike County EMA and EMS, the Auditor, Treasurer, Recorder, the Board of Elections or any other Government function (all or most of whom have had their budgets reduced) we are obligated by law to provide funding for those departments to function. The notion that reducing spending is a preference or subjective is not accurate. It’s basic math that dictates the actions of the Board. We cannot allocate monies we don’t have. We cannot deficit spend nor can we borrow any more than is already owed. It may not be pleasant to hear but the truth is we’ve spent our savings or cushion until it no longer exists. All of these financial facts can be verified by the Auditor’s office for clarity and/or confirmation of the exact dollar amounts I’ve mentioned above.
I’m not sure it’s possible to ‘over-fund’ law enforcement due to the importance of their responsibility to the community and I have great respect for the men and women who serve to protect us. I also believe that the Department functions more efficiently than in years past as a result of trying to maintain the same level of service in the face of financial limitations. I know several of these people personally and it’s heartbreaking to see them work so hard and know that we’re just not able to continue to fund the department at its current levels. There is no way to put a positive spin on the necessity of reducing law enforcement monies but at this point it is no longer optional to allocate monies we don’t have. To summarize; we don’t have a choice in the matter.
My hope would be that the Sheriff’s Department and the Board of Commissioners work together to come up with a solution to serve our citizens while operating within the financial constraints we find ourselves in. These are your tax dollars and we need to find a way to stretch them as far as possible on your behalf.
Sincerely,
Jerry Miller
Pike County Commissioner
