Sheriff fires back at mayor’s proposed cuts to his office
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Shelby County Sheriff is telling county commissioners not to approve the latest budget proposal from Mayor Lee Harris, which would eliminate hundreds of currently vacant positions in the Sheriff’s Office.
The budget proposal submitted by Harris would cut more than 400 vacant positions, including hundreds of deputy jailers.
Sheriff Floyd Bonner, speaking during a budget hearing Wednesday, says that plan would be illegal under state law.
He says his deputies are already spread too thin, as they try to handle more inmates with fewer officers on staff at an aging and dangerous jail.
SCSO doubles down on need for new jail after ‘disturbance’ on Friday night
“We’re doing more and more shakedowns in the jail right now, and with that shakedown, I have to call in specialized units on overtime to make sure that our jail is safe,” Bonner said. “We’ve gotta look for contraband, weapons, all types of things. Every time we do it, it’s done on an overtime dime.”
Some of the positions set to be eliminated have been vacant for more than a year and a half.
Bonner says that’s because the county has not set aside enough money to fill them.
He also claims the latest effort to cut positions amounts to defunding police.
Four inmates injured after “disturbance” at 201 Poplar
In the past few weeks, WREG has reported on several disturbances by inmates, assaults on both staff and inmates, and malfunctioning cell doors inside the jail at 201 Poplar. Earlier this month, inmates set several fires in the facility, while cell doors were being knocked off their tracks.
WREG reached out to Mayor Harris’ office Wednesday for comment on the sheriff’s statement. They responded with a statement from Shelby County Budget Director Michael Thompson, who said the budget proposal wouldn’t have an impact on current staffing.
“To avoid a tax increase, the budget team took a hard look at the vacancies in every county office and decided to repurpose funding for the long-term vacancies,” Thompson said. “The long-term vacancies are the positions that haven’t been filed for 18 months or more. Some of them have not been filled for years, and some have never been filled.”
Thompson said the new budget contained funding for many new positions in the sheriff’s office.
“At the end of the day, the proposed budget has no impact on current personnel, proposes hundreds of positions for law enforcement hiring and, in an effort to promote recruitment, raises law enforcement pay to the highest levels ever and one of the highest in the region,” he said.
Mayor Harris later sent his own response:
“This year’s budget sets forth a path to give Shelby County law enforcement their highest raise in Shelby County history. It would also, if approved, make our law enforcement personnel amongst the highest paid in the region. Look, we have to raise their pay because pay is the only meaningful lever we have for recruitment. The budget also proposes hundreds of positions for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office to fill, but, again, these positions have to be paid more. My position is simple: Pay law enforcement more money, period. We must recruit and retain deputies, and those serving our community deserve this raise.”
In a May 10 interview with WREG, Harris said his budget would pump millions into the jail for improvements. He asked commissioners to do “whatever needs to be done to address the severe and repeated problems at 201 Poplar.”
Proposed county budget has money for jail improvements
In order to make those jail improvements, Harris said the county would need to find money by cutting some unfilled positions.
“We have plenty of positions that are empty that have never been filled that represent, from an accounting standpoint, numbers on our bottom line. So we have to repurpose that money temporarily,” Harris said.
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