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Morgan Talks Budget Cuts, Still Not Speaking To County Administrator

April 9, 2009

Escambia Sheriff David Morgan held a press conference Wednesday to explain $4 million in cuts to his budget. Even though it is a five percent reduction, it is still short of the $6.5 million the county commission wants him to cut.

With $4 million in cuts, the sheriff said he can continue to operate his department without impacting public safety, but if more money were to be cut, the public safety would be impacted.

“We can operate the sheriff’s office on the par that we are with a $4 million dollar cut,” he said. “A reduction of 4 million dollars, folks, that’s a lot of money.”

While Morgan may take his budget needs to the commission, he says he will do so without talking to County Administrator Bob McLaughlin. Morgan cut off communications with Morgan a few weeks ago, accusing McLaughlin of miscommunicating his intentions to the county’s five commissioners.

“What I can not deal with, OK, is somebody playing poker with me,” Morgan said. “We are not in a poker match here. We are all in this problem together. So we must deal openly, honestly and transparently with each other.”

Morgan detailed his plans as first published on NorthEscambia.com back on April 1 and explained organization changes within his department.

Morgan has already grounded the department’s air unit for an $800,000 annual savings.

Now, he wants to eliminate the jail’s health services contract with an outside firm, providing jail health services in house for a $1.8 million savings.

To save more money, some of Morgan’s other plans include:

renegotiate the jail’s food services contact to save $100,000
eliminate up to $816,000 in salaries through retirements
cut another $450,000 in contracted positions and streamline administration
drop a mediation contract for $45,000
drop county commissioner insurance paid by the ECSO for $25,000

Morgan’s budget stands at $78.7 million; his total savings as proposed would be up to $4,036,000.

Morgan has restructured the organization chart for the department, cutting 10 directors down to three commanders.

Additional changes are underway in the department to reduce costs and put more deputies on the street. Morgan has frozen promotions, and he expects that retirements will lead to the elimination of several positions. The sheriff expects that he can replace each position with a deputy on the streets and still save money. Those retirement eliminated positions include a major, three captains, five lieutenants, four sergeants, four master deputies, one senior deputy and 10 support and administrative positions.

Morgan says the department needs to add 66 deputies to reach the state average number of deputies per 1,000 people in the county. The state average is 1.7 deputies for every 1,000 people; the ECSO is currently at 1.56. By comparison, the Pensacola Police Department stands at 2.8 officers per thousand people.

Escambia County currently has 309 detention deputies at the jail, 276 patrol deputies, 53 in investigations, 30 in court security and 42 other sworn personnel such as internal affairs and civil officers.

Morgan’s final budget requests are due to the Escambia County Commission by May 1.

Comments

8 Responses to “Morgan Talks Budget Cuts, Still Not Speaking To County Administrator”

Trish on April 10th, 2009 4:17 pm

Escambia County commentator:

Way to go! I agree with you, how on earth could anyone with any COMMON SENSE think that the people in the north end get away without paying taxes. I want what I pay for. The tax collector wants my North end tax money just as fast as he wants yours. OR, maybe you are not a property owner and you don’t pay the chunk of change that we pay!

If that is the case, then “Mr. Century” I don’t care to hear any criticism about any part of the county, especially the north end. Freeloaders??? Think again.
Escambia County on April 9th, 2009 9:20 pm

Lets see… Last time I looked, Century,Molino, Bratt, McDavid,Byrneville, (north side of the county) where all inside Escambia county Florida. Aren’t these deputies, ESCAMBIA COUNTY deputies. Isn’t Mr Morgan ESCAMBIA COUNTY SHERRIFF. So I think we are entitled to some coverage in this end of the county. OUR TAX DOLLARS, go to help pay for that coverage. If you want to call us freeloaders and hand out folks. BACK IT UP…… Give some for instances. Why don’t you enlightened us all and tell us how the south end of the county pays for their coverage. We already know how you think we pay for ours. Ours is given to us.
Wise Man on April 9th, 2009 2:54 pm

Personally I have seen an increase in presence of the deputies, it is very noticible in all parts of the county, promise kept in my opinion. Finally the deputies are starting to work traffic violations the way they should. Proper management makes these things happen. Also a good manager will do what is needed to make sure his or her department is operated the way it needs to be, not give in to power trips by the county admin. We are so fortunate to have a Sherriff that will just say no to the good ol boy system. As far as the Helicopter goes, smart move, it was very limited what good we actually got out of it, right now that is a good palce to cut, this is called streamlining, something that most of novices know nothing about. Keep up the Good Work Buford Pusser Morgan, Walking Tall.
Al on April 9th, 2009 11:03 am

I wish there was a text only version of this article. It is hard to take our “sheriff” seriously in his clown get up. Air Force or Sheriff’s dept, General… choose one or the other and wear just that uniform.

I agree with most of the budget cuts… but I think it was easy for the General to cut the choppers because they are best for the north end… and who wants to help the “armpit” of escambia county.

3 1/2 more years??
ardubya on April 9th, 2009 10:41 am

“While Morgan may take his budget needs to the commission, he says he will do so without talking to County Administrator Bob McLaughlin. Morgan cut off communications with Morgan a few weeks ago, accusing McLaughlin of miscommunicating his intentions to the county’s five commissioners.” What are they, 5!?! How childish. And I think that by eliminating such things as the air unit in a department this size IS impacting public safety. I’m all for the tent city idea like they do in Arizona, it has worked very well there, but to cut back on tools such as the air unit that deputies (and others) rely on to help them is causing the whole county to be less safe. By freezing promotions, you can create morale issues with the deputies and other employees which will cause other problems.
Century on April 9th, 2009 9:19 am

Century does not pay for the police protection that they recieve now, and yet you want more deputies. century gets more handouts than the rest of the county combined….what a bunch of freeloaders! Kudos to Mr. Morgan for shaving his budget, Ronnie mac would have been 4 million over budget so he could get some more shiny toys.
Fishhook240 on April 9th, 2009 7:10 am

To fix the Sheriff’s budget close the jail and put them in tents w/out A/C , feed them cold sandwichs and take away there rights. Make them not want to come back. A lot are repeaters anyway. ” ITS A FREE LIFE” While the rest of us work. Find some kind of work they could do expand camp-5 and make them grow there own food. They are in there for punishment not a country club life style.. If we would run our jails like I would like too a lot of them would not return. I would make it so miserable and uncomfortable they would not want to come back.

IT TIME TO CHANGE HOW WE DEAL WITH CRIMINALS
GIVE THE VICTIMS RIGHTS NOT THE CROOKS
B. Godwin on April 9th, 2009 6:44 am

What happened to all the deputies that were going to be added to Century and Molino. It seems like their numbers have decreased. Is this true? Even the deputies in town seem to have decreased. Is this true? So many promises and yet so little return.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News