Camden deputies must take unpaid week

Savannah — A budget battle with Camden County commissioners has forced Sheriff Bill Smith to order all his full-time employees — including deputies and jailers — to take off a full work week without pay to avoid layoffs in the southeastern Georgia community.

The move affects about 130 workers who must take five unpaid days by the end of October, leaving fewer people to answer phones, patrol the streets, secure the jail and serve as courthouse bailiffs.

“We’ve been able to do what we have to do,” said sheriff’s spokesman Lt. William Terrell, who already took his unpaid days. “It’s stung pretty good, not getting a paycheck, especially with food prices and gas prices going up.”

Charlene Sears, a Camden County commissioner who also works as a financial manager in the sheriff’s office, said Wednesday the furloughs have hurt morale but were necessary to avoid layoffs.

“It’s a sad place,” Sears said. “People come in and say this is really hard. But there’s no other way to do it unless we fire 15 or 16 people. We decided, to be fair, that everyone would unfortunately feel the pain of this.”

Furloughs are rippling through state government as Georgia grapples with the slowing economy. Gov. Sonny Perdue has ordered budget cuts to account for a projected $1.6 billion shortfall. Hundreds of state employees will be furloughed for one day a month as the state looks to slash costs.

But the Camden County sheriff’s budget woes have as much to do with politics as economics.

Commissioners have fought with the soon-to-be former sheriff for years over his spending of an estimated $20 million in seized drug money. Some of the money went to college scholarships for criminal justice students and new uniforms for a high school cheerleading squad.

Smith’s critics say he should have spent that on improving his own department. The feud prompted commissioners to slash more than $2 million from the sheriff’s budget two years ago. The county now doles out his annual $6 million in monthly installments of $500,000.

The budget fight contributed to Smith losing the office he’s held for 22 years. Voters ousted him in the July primary. The new sheriff, Tommy Gregory, takes over in January.

Sears said the unpaid leave was necessary because October has three pay periods instead of two. That would drive up the month’s payroll to about $600,000, she said, and the sheriff’s office needed to trim $100,000 — a week’s pay for the entire staff — to keep from going over budget.

Commissioner Steve Berry, one of the sheriff’s critics, told the Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that Smith should have addressed problems with his budget two years ago. Berry said the unpaid days off “sound like a dog and pony show.”

Terrell said employees have been staggering their days off since late August to have as little effect on services as possible, Terrell said. Many are taking just a day or two per week until they accumulate five.