by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
For two hours Thursday morning, Sheriff John Rutherford defended to the City Council Finance Committee his proposed $357 million budget that includes 1,750 sworn officers, 808 correctional officers and 699 civilian employees.
The lobbying didn’t work.
After an often heated debate, the Finance Committee voted to cut Rutherford’s budget by the same 3 percent as the other City departments. Rutherford will now have to make $8.83 million worth of cuts and he has no intention of cutting salaries. Instead, entire programs will go unfunded and others will be obliterated. And, Rutherford isn’t happy.
“I’m mad as hell,” he said, after the vote and after meeting with the local media to explain exactly what will happen.
“The Community Service Officer program? Gone,” he said, of the 92-person program that assists JSO with calls that don’t require a uniformed patrol officer. “I am going to tell the community that when they are sitting on the interstate with a crash and can’t get an officer, to call their City Council member.”
Since the Finance Committee is comprised of nine of the 19 Council members, Rutherford hopes the other 10 will see things the other way when the final vote occurs, likely Sept. 29. Rutherford said he has met with the other 10 to discuss his budget, but plans to meet with them again to convince them to overturn the Finance Committee’s vote.
In addition to eliminating the CSO program, Rutherford said he won’t be able to hire 50 new officers and he’ll have to cut many others. Overall, he’s looking at laying off 130 people as of Oct. 1.
“What I hope is the rest of Council understands what happened today. I hope the public understands what happened today,” he said, adding he believes there are motives beyond financial behind the cuts. “I think it’s a political maneuver and I think it’s bad.”
Finance member Denise Lee doesn’t support trimming Rutherford’s budget. Lee said she understands that at the outset of the hearings last month, it was agreed that every City department would take — and adjust for — a 3 percent cut across-the-board. However, Lee represents Dist. 8, which includes several high-crime areas of town. Lee said unless Jacksonville is safe, and can be proven safe to the rest of the country, economic development and other factors will be affected.
“I recognize we said everybody has to take a hit and we are all working to address the proposed deficit,” she said. “But, the number one problem is we don’t have sufficient law enforcement. I am not willing to cut one-half of a penny of a police officer’s (pay). I’m afraid if he (Rutherford) cuts the police, what is going on now will get worse.”
Rutherford contends the root of the current situation lies in the past and the decision to reduce the millage rate — and thus revenue generated by property taxes — year after year. He said that decision forced the City to start dipping into the pension funds to make up the budget shortfalls. His budget, Rutherford pointed out, is up $21.4 million over last year. However, $18.5 million of that is due to mandatory pension contributions. He also said because 82.5 percent of his budget is tied up in salaries — many of which belong to union employees who are currently in collective bargaining — a 3 percent cut will mean he won’t have the money to pay his employees when the new fiscal year starts.
Rutherford told the Finance Committee they would ultimately be held accountable.
“There are two truths here. One, it’s your job to set the budget. Two, my job as a constitutional officer is to tell you the consequences of these cuts,” he said. “Do not forget, you are going to own those consequences.”
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