Editorial

These cuts will hurt

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

When the economy goes south, local governments take it in the teeth. Their revenues are highly dependent upon the economic strength of the communities they serve.

In times like the current economic crisis, it means services get cut back and infrastructure improvements get delayed (which only adds to future costs).

Local government revenues are always about one year behind the actual economic activity, so this year's budgets are a reflection of last year's economic disaster.

The city of Mountain Home saw the handwriting on the wall earlier than almost any local government in the state, so it hasn't been hit as hard as some. Its transition to the "new economic realities" has been relatively smooth, but nonetheless painful, as it slashed operations by $1.3 million this year.

And the county, which responded at about the rate most of the rest of the state did, has been forced to ax just under $1 million for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

But it is where you make the cuts that are important, and at the county level, the most painful of those cuts occurred with the Elmore County Sheriff's Office. Everybody had some cuts, but nobody took it in the neck worse than Sheriff Rick Layher.

In part, that's because Layher, for whatever other strengths he may have, is not a great infighter. He points out his needs to the commissioners, and isn't happy when they're not met, but he doesn't lobby for his needs with bulldog tenacity and put special pressure on the commissioners. He's just too nice a guy to do that, but it does hurt him. So we guess it is up to the public to do that -- to lobby the county for improved law enforcement capabilities -- between now and the time the budgets are put together for the next fiscal year.

Every county department is vital. All contribute to doing the jobs government is tasked by the voters (and the state constitution) to do.

But we can think of few places where county government more directly impacts the day to day lives of citizens than law enforcement.

This is a big county, physically, with a lot of roads to cover. Growth in the hills has added to the needs for law enforcement there. Outlying residential subdivision growth has increased the workload of the sheriff's office. From burglaries to domestic disputes, which always rise during poor economic times, the need for adequate law enforcement continues to go up. And the accident rate in this county is ridiculous, something that can only be brought down by additional traffic patrols.

Which is why cuts in the sheriff's budget are one of the worst ideas possible.

We all suffer when that happens.

We suggest the commissioners sit down with Layher and develop a two-year plan, beginning with next year's budget, to provide three to four additional patrol deputies each of those two years, and in doing so, to adjust the other departments by, at the least, "holding the line" on any increases in their departments.

That will be painful for the other departments, because costs always go up, but if we don't start getting better law enforcement protection the costs to all of us will be even greater.

-- Kelly Everitt