Ramsey County Manager Ryan O'Connor on Thursday imposed financial restrictions on the office of Sheriff Bob Fletcher over increased salary costs that threaten to put the sheriff's 2019 budget $2.5 million in the red.
The Sheriff's Office travel expenses, use of purchasing cards, contracts under $10,000 and business expense reimbursements will now face added scrutiny, O'Connor wrote in a letter to Fletcher.
"Much of the projected budget deficit stems from unsustainable levels of staffing … Compensation costs must immediately be reduced," O'Connor wrote.
Fletcher said Thursday that the salary costs driving his department's projected overrun were a problem he inherited.
On the day he took office, Fletcher said, the Sheriff's Office was 33 full-time equivalents over the budgeted allotment, and 28 of those were from the previous administration.
Fletcher said he's moving correctional officers into vacant sworn-deputy positions as they become available to reduce payroll costs. The transition will reduce the budget shortfall to about $1.3 million by the end of the year, and he expects to meet budget next year. The sheriff's department will spend about $60 million this year.
Fletcher said O'Connor didn't want layoffs, so there was little he could do to address the problem.
"I've been alerting them to this problem since March 11 and they elected to do little about it until they tried to make it a political football in September," said Fletcher.
