Bowling Green, KY.

The Sheriff’s Office for Warren County is faced with a new budget reality. In order to make the figures work, the Sheriff had to eliminate detective jobs and shift two employees to patrol duties.

Recent budget figures show just how much money is at stake. The Warren County Sheriff’s budget for 2007 was $2.3 million. This is a decrease of $114,405 from the 2006 budget. It is $505,000 less than what the Sheriff’s Office had requested.

Their budget is the latest local government in south central Kentucky that must confront an ongoing battle to keep their basic services, like police protection, affordable.

Now Warren County becomes one of four area sheriffs’ departments without full time investigative detectives. The other counties are (1) Butler (2) Edmonson and (3) Simpson Counties.

Another Western Kentucky Sheriff, Daviess County Sheriff Keith Cain recently said, “If you polled sheriff’s offices throughout the Commonwealth, you would unfortunately see a similar trend.” Sheriff Cain has been elected to be the President of the Kentucky Sheriff’s Association for 2008.

Many local sheriffs’ offices are expanding their law enforcement duties to include more staff resources for increased attention to collecting taxes and serving legal papers, as well as their normal duties of patrolling the county. With this increase in activities, the sheriffs are going back to their county fiscal courts for more assistance in meeting their budget needs.

In large urban counties and to some extent, quickly growing semi-rural counties, the role of a detective is seen as vital staff to a fully functioning Sheriff’s Office. The other alternative for these cash strapped sheriff offices is to seek help from the Kentucky State Police on coming more into a supportive role for local detective work on important cases.

This budget crisis for some sheriffs is an early warning sign that the entire justice system in 21st Century Kentucky is strained to a breaking point. To solve this problem of local law enforcement budget crisis, it will be up to the governor and state legislature in the 2008 to address the issue.