CAT Tracks for September 7, 2009 ALEXANDER COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT

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From the WSIL TV Channel 3 Website...

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Commissioner Speaks Out on Cuts at Sheriff's Dept.

By Dana Jay

CAIRO, Ill.-- Budget troubles are to blame for layoffs at the Alexander County Sheriff's Department.

The only County Board member that voted against the measure says she's afraid of what the cuts will mean for the community.

Commissioner Angela Greenwell says the board's message to criminals is, "Come on in. Alexander County is open like it was decades back. Open with prostitution and gambling ."

The County Board has ordered Sheriff David Barkett to cut seventy-five percent of his staff by laying seven part-time deputies and four full-time officers. Five workers in other county offices will also lose their jobs.

Barkett issued the following statement Friday: "At the level we are forced to operate by mandate from the County Board we will do the best we can with the resources we have available to use."

The board has mandated that Barkett and his remaining staff provide security at the courthouse, serve the courts and transport and secure inmates. That will leave few resources for crime stopping.

Greenwell called Barkett the "best [sheriff] we've ever had."

"When you neuter his department down to where you only have a handful of deputies there is no way that he is going to be able to go out and engage in activity on the highway," she said.

Greenwell blames years of poor fiscal management for the cuts.

"This should have been considered in the budget last year. You could have cut then in offices where it would not have brought the disastrous results that it's bringing us today," she said.

Alexander County Board Chairman Mike Caldwell did not return calls from News Three requesting his side of this story.

A spokesman for the Illinois State Police based in Ullin says his department will respond to emergency and high-priority situations in Alexander County.