Kane County officials are working to create a balanced budget for the next fiscal year, but there are some safety and personnel items in Sheriff Donald Kramer’s budget that he says need to be addressed.
Kramer’s budget request stands at $26.2 million and includes replacing 11 squad cars and hiring three deputies to create a traffic unit which he hopes will bring in additional revenues.
“I did go through each line item, every single one of them and looked where we could reduce,” Kramer said this week at the county’s Judicial and Public Safety Committee meeting.
The sheriff made cuts or reduced line items from his General Fund budget as well as Adult Corrections budget. Those items include adult room and board expenses, medical and dental insurance and the jail’s food budget, he said. Documents Kramer presented at the meeting show 50 percent reductions in costs for conference and meetings, employee recognition supplies and other supplies.
Additionally, the sheriff reduced the number of sheriff’s deputies he is requesting from 10 — five in sheriff’s deputies and five correctional officers — to three.
“I think it is a very frugal budget,” the sheriff said. “We are doing our best to hold the line.”
What he is not able to reduce is replacing 11 squad cars at a cost of $337,000. Sheriff’s deputies use Crown Victoria squads that are “ancient,” he said. Kramer wants to replace the squad cars with a Ford Taurus Interceptor that has four wheel drive as well as other safety features.
The additional deputies are needed so the department can improve traffic enforcement, Kramer said.
Traffic enforcement requires studies to determine where crashes are occurring and targeting offenses at those locations, Kramer said. The sheriff’s department had a traffic unit from 1998 until 2006, he said. During that time, severe crashes and DUIs went down significantly, he said.
His request for three deputies is to create a new unit and he anticipates the unit would create new revenue, he said.
Deputies have very little time to do traffic enforcement between other calls, he said. His office does not respond to calls without a complainant because of manpower. A dedicated traffic unit would help free up time for deputies to be on the street and improve response times and increase the amount of tickets issued, he said.
Sheriff’s deputies issued nearly 900 tickets last month, Kramer said.
Kramer, elected in November 2014, is going through his first budget process, however, his office already had a financial crisis after he terminated a contract with the U.S. Marshal’s Service to house federal inmates. The office lost about $2.5 million in revenue as a result.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
