The Montezuma County commissioners and Sheriff Steve Nowlin clashed over the sheriff’s budget at a special meeting Thursday. The disagreement comes as county voters are deciding whether to approve a 1 percent sales tax earmarked for the sheriff’s office, detention center, and drug task force. Nowlin had asked the county for a supplemental budget request of approximately $240,000 for wages and benefits. After a lengthy discussion, the commissioners made no decision on the request but continued the hearing to Nov. 12 at 10 a.m. Commission chair Jim Candelaria grilled Nowlin on why he overspent his budget and what actions he has taken to rein in spending. The two disagreed on a number of issues. Those included whether staff had actually been cut from the sheriff’s office and how it came about that the county and the Town of Dolores did not have a contract this year for the sheriff to provide coverage there. Nowlin, Candelaria, and Commissioner Kent Lindsay also argued over whether Dolores gets special attention from the sheriff’s office. Candelaria emphasized that all county departments are having budgetary problems. He said the state legislature’s actions in reducing property taxes for homeowners have meant major reductions in revenue for counties. Candelaria said, “These are big hits to us. It’s not your fault, it’s not our fault, but it’s a reality we have to live with.”
The Montezuma County commissioners and Sheriff Steve Nowlin clashed over the sheriff’s budget at a special meeting Thursday.
The disagreement comes as county voters are deciding whether to approve a 1 percent sales tax earmarked for the sheriff’s office, detention center, and drug task force.
Nowlin had asked the county for a supplemental budget request of approximately $240,000 for wages and benefits. After a lengthy discussion, the commissioners made no decision on the request but continued the hearing to Nov. 12 at 10 a.m.
Commission chair Jim Candelaria grilled Nowlin on why he overspent his budget and what actions he has taken to rein in spending.
Nowlin said at the end of last year the sheriff’s budget had been $1.33 million, but that was reduced to $1.22 million some time after that and he did not know why.
Nowlin said he has 62 full-time positions now instead of 71 and has been working on contracts with the Town of Dolores and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe for next year. Those contracts, which had been a longstanding practice and provided additional money to the sheriff’s office, were not approved for this year.
Nowlin said the county wanted the contract with Dolores to be for $274,000, but the town would not agree to that. Candelaria said the commission had gone back to a contract of $250,000, a fact Nowlin said he had not been aware of.
“If I had known that I would have signed it,” Nowlin said.
Candelaria asked about the sheriff’s office providing school resource officers. Nowlin said at present he does not have the money to do so. The Town of Dolores is interested in an SRO, but will not pay for three-quarters of a deputy, Nowlin said.
Candelaria said statutorily the county does not have to provide coverage for the Town of Dolores because they can contract it out, and that SROs are important but it is the school district’s responsibility to pay for those.
Likewise, the county is not responsible for providing security at the county annex, Candelaria said. “Why was the budget overspent?” he asked.
Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer said the county needs to find out from an outside expert how much money it takes to run the sheriff’s office because it is a large percentage of the county’s budget. Candelaria said they are working on that now.
Candelaria and Commissioner Kent Lindsay questioned whether the sheriff’s office provides special coverage to the Town of Dolores. Lindsay said he’d seen a Facebook post that said response time for calls for service in the unincorporated county is 20 or 30 minutes, but he’s been told the response time in Dolores is less than 2 minutes.
Nowlin said that was untrue and no sheriff’s officers were stationed in Dolores except the officer at the school.
Lindsay said there are about 800 people in Dolores vs. 10,000 to 15,000 in the unincorporated county. “Why should they not be served better than Dolores?” he asked.
“I think they are,” Nowlin said.
Candelaria said the previous night there were two deputies in Dolores sitting on Highway 145 and that he took offense at Nowlin’s statement that there were no deputies stationed there.
Nowlin said he assumed the deputies were there because of a call for service.
County administrator Travis Anderson said in March he had informed the sheriff’s office that it was on the path of going over budget and that every two weeks thereafter the county’s finance committee would send an update, but they received no response saying how the problem was going to be fixed.
Anderson noted that the commissioners had allocated a 5 percent pay raise for county employees but that a number of sheriff’s employees had received much bigger raises.
Nowlin said that issue had been discussed during the budget process and the salary budget was approved by the commissioners.
County finance manager Faedra Grubbs said the approved budget was for 67 employees with raises of 5 percent.
She said in order to pay for the supplemental budget request, the county would have to dip into its reserves.
“The rest of the county is on track to stay within budget,” she said.
Grubbs called it “irresponsible” for Nowlin to have a budget approved on Dec. 28 and continue spending money knowing his budget would be overspent.
Nowlin has said repeatedly that the MCSO is regularly losing employees because its salaries and benefits are lower than those offered by other law-enforcement agencies in the area.
Candelaria emphasized that all county departments are having budgetary problems. He said the state legislature’s actions in reducing property taxes for homeowners have meant major reductions in revenue for counties.
Candelaria said as the state legislature has acted to reduce property valuations for homeowners, it has meant major reductions in revenue for counties, which depend heavily on property taxes. “These are big hits to us,” he told Nowlin. “It’s not your fault, it’s not our fault, but it’s a reality we have to live with.”
Lindsay noted that the voters’ decision about the sales tax will be a key one.
“A week from today, we’ll know where we stand going into the future,” he said.
