Downum Remains In The Dark On Budget
San Andreas, CA — Calaveras County Sheriff Dennis Downum admits he’s still in the dark when it comes to formulating a department budget.
Downum was Thursday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”.
Downum says he has been asked by the county to prepare four budgets; one would represent the status quo while the others would call for a five percent reduction, a 10 percent reduction and a 17.5 percent reduction.
“We don’t even have a target number. It’s the most dysfunctional budget year I’ve ever seen. It appears the CAO’s office is starting at the 17.5 percent level as far as notifying people they may lose their jobs. When you take into account all the personnel resources we have in the department we could lose 34 people.
If we go with the 17.5 percent reduction budget I’ll lose nine patrol deputies and be left with no detectives. We’ve eliminated all our command officer positions and pushed everything down from the top to maximize our patrol duty but in the end I won’t really have anything left to patrol with.”
The “Newsmaker of the Day” is heard each weekday morning on AM 1450 KVML at 6:47, 7:47 and 8:47am.
Written by mark@mlode.com
