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Budget Balance

Jail faces funding cuts to overtime, public defender position restoration possible

MAYVILLE — “We are constantly struggling with minimum staffing,” Sheriff Joe Gerace said Wednesday.

Gerace offered a scroll of colored blocking which took up a few feet of table space which showed shifts and time-off slots at the Chautauqua County Jail at the legislature’s Public Safety Committee meeting. The jail faces a potential $50,000 cut to overtime for the upcoming year after the legislative committees reviewed the county executive’s tentative budget last week.

The Sheriff’s Department also faces tentative cuts to the deputy sheriff’s road patrol due to retirements for $118,000, as well as a decrease of $50,000 in the contractual line for the jail in regards to the reduction in food expense. The total suggested decrease equals $218,000.

“I’m going to do my best to make this work,” Gerace said.

The sheriff said if someone calls in sick or if someone gets hurt on the job and is out of work, those shifts have to be covered.

He added that he wants to “set the record straight” regarding full-time corrections staff versus part-time staff. The part-time staffers, even though they can be more difficult to manage due to scheduling conflicts and overturn, are less expensive than hiring more full-time staff.

“What happens is they accrue time,” Gerace said. “Fixing this issue, I just wanted to bring it to your attention, that it’s not simple. It is very complicated. There’s always another challenge.”

Ned Barone, Chautauqua County public defender, also came before the committee Wednesday to discuss the proposed cutting of one assistant public defender in next year’s tentative budget. While it originally appeared that leaving one full-time assistant public defender position out of the budget would not impact the number of staff in the department, Barone said that is not the case.

Currently, the office has a full time equivalence of 11, but after proposed changes to the tentative budget, the office would be dropping down to 10 assistant public defenders.

While the hope was to have six assistant public defenders brought up to full-time status, the possible loss of funding causes the department to lose a full-time position.

“Part of my concern is we didn’t have enough (people) to begin with,” Barone said. “We’re in no position with our (caseload) to lose a position. It came quite frankly as a surprise that we were losing a body.”

Barone said the proposed staffing numbers still were not where the department needs to be long-term, but were something the department could “work with.”

“We’re really in a tight spot losing a full-time (assistant public defender),” he said.

Legislator Terry Niebel, R-Dunkirk, said the Public Defender’s Office is handling several thousand cases, which Barone confirmed.

“That’s only going to get worse after the first of the year because the Office of Court Administration has directed these guys to have a public defender at every arraignment,” Niebel said. “Up until now, I guess you don’t have to have someone there for every arraignment, but as of the first of the year, you’re going to have to. That’s going to be a tremendous imposition on the department, so, I think a restoration in this case is probably warranted.”

Committee Chairman P.J. Wendel, R-Lakewood, asked how the loss of bringing the assistant public defenders up to full-time would impact assigned counsel. Assigned counsel is when private lawyers are assigned by the courts to handle certain cases.

Barone said if the Public Defender’s Office doesn’t have the personnel available to address certain cases, they can’t get to them, in which case, they could end up using assigned counsel.

“It hurts every which way,” he said.

Afterward, Niebel made a motion to recommend restoring the position to the Public Defender’s Office, which Legislator Robert Bankoski seconded. The motion was then approved.

It will still require full legislature’s approval when it is discussed next week.

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