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Sheriff asks for pay, equipment and overtime increases; commissioners trim request, hold vehicle purchases pending RFP
Summary
Sheriff Crano presented a revised FY2017 budget with higher pay and equipment costs, prompting the commissioners to accept reductions in the sheriff's reconciliation, pause planned vehicle purchases pending an RFP, and reallocate $500,000 of projected overtime into a hiring reserve.
Sheriff Crano presented a revised FY2017 budget for the Saint Mary's County Sheriff's Office, asking the board to cover pay adjustments from a recent compensation study, replacement vehicles and higher overtime costs. Commissioners agreed to some reductions in the sheriff's reconciliation and asked staff to return with a final, balanced number.
The sheriff's office outlined three large cost drivers: overtime (projected to be about $1.0 million historically), vehicle replacement (33 vehicles, estimated $427,126 under exempt financing plus payments on 16 replacement vehicles previously received) and employee compensation changes tied to a consultant study. The sheriff said the total non-grant increase over FY2016 was about $3.2 million and that a separate consultant-recommended pay adjustment added about $1.7 million in personnel costs once benefits were included. "I come today, you know, completely willing to work with the board and work within those resources that you've identified," Sheriff Crano said as he described tradeoffs between staffing, overtime and service levels.
Commissioners pressed the sheriff on vacancy patterns and historical underspending in salaries. Several commissioners said they would prefer to hold the sheriff to a flat or reduced recurring allocation and manage pay increases within that envelope. As a result the board directed staff to: (1) accept a set of reconciliation reductions submitted by the sheriff (approximately $1.8 million in the package), (2) reduce proposed replacement vehicle funding and put purchases on hold pending an RFP comparing leasing and exempt-financing options, and (3) reduce the sheriff's available overtime budget by $500,000 and place that amount into a reserve to fund new hires as vacancies are filled.
Major Horn, the assistant sheriff, urged the board to give the sheriff a clear total to manage and to avoid micromanaging line-item purchases: "Give the sheriff a figure and let him manage the sheriff's office," he told commissioners during a heated exchange. The board responded that it wanted both accountability and a workable number; several commissioners emphasized they would rather set a total and ask the sheriff to prioritize within it than repeatedly reallocate line items midyear.
Other sheriff items discussed included program expansions that have ongoing costs (pretrial services and urinalysis testing estimated at tens of thousands annually), one-time equipment and lab needs, and a request to convert some temporary part-time (TPT) positions to payroll-funded positions to avoid contract quarry/10.99 payments. Commissioners and sheriff's staff also discussed operational details such as fingerprinting fee changes tied to state CJIS/MPTC rules, and the need to track and break down overtime by function in HTE starting in April.
The board's next steps are to hold the adjusted sheriff budget at the reduced reconciliation figure, instruct procurement to issue a vehicle leasing/exempt-financing RFP, and expect a revised sheriff budget and staffing plan at the next work session.
Ending: The board treated the sheriff request as an iterative reconciliation rather than a final appropriation. Commissioners said they would fund priorities within an overall cap, revisit vehicle decisions once competitive bids were received, and allow the sheriff to pull from a designated hiring reserve if recruits fill vacancies.
