Cleveland Sheriff speaks out after sudden layoffs
CLEVELAND COUNTY, Okla. ( KFOR ) – Cleveland County Sheriff Chris Amason sat down with News 4 Friday to speak out after the sudden layoffs and budget breakdown over the last year.
"I'm not a politician, I'm a cop, and public safety and keeping people safe is what I do," said Sheriff Amason.
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He said last week the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office lost 25 members of its staff while also losing five spots that were expected to be filled but aren't going to. He said that is due to budget constraints.
In the past week, the County Commissioners have pointed at the sheriff for not handling the budget appropriately and alleging that he is mismanaging funds. They also claimed he is overspending.
"Where am I overspending, show me where," said Sheriff Amason. "Losing my staff was the hardest thing we've ever had to do. Ultimately that was the decision we had to make to protect the sheriff's office and protect the county."
What would it take to bring those people back?
"It's going to take cooperation, it's going to take sitting down and looking at our actual needs and letting loose of some of the cash the county wants to keep hold of," said Sheriff Amason. "The government should not be profit-driven. We have to be responsible with the money we are given but we're also not here to hoard the money."
The sheriff has been the focal point of many issues in the past few months to a year. Issues that surround deaths at the Cleveland County Detention Center, Cleveland County Detention Officer Luis Alejandro Cardona's arrest for sexual battery and assault and battery, and the death of K-9 Dolar.
People have been and will look at the sheriff over everything that has happened lately and say, it doesn't look good. What would you say to those people?
"The detention center has to be run correctly and I want to do that. The detention center is one of the most important jobs we have here in the county and has to be funded correctly. I want to do that. It's hard to do that when we're not properly funded and when we have such a high turnover of people who just don't want to be in those positions. Things are going to happen. It is my responsibility to make sure we are doing everything in our best ability to make sure that doesn't happen," said Sheriff Amason.
Sheriff Amason said that a big part of the budget contention is that each year they release an estimate of needs and a number with it but for the last two years the county has not met the number they estimate they need.
He said that last year they requested around $23 million but ended up getting approved for around $17 million. This year he said they requested around the same but ended up getting approved for around $19 million.
The commissioners have suggested that the sheriff is overspending, which he did last year.
"Again, I will tell people, including the commissioners, to look at last year's budget and tell me how much was overspent," said Sheriff Amason. "Show me, come show me. You want to say that I'm overspending. Show me where I'm overspending. If you're just going to throw stones and say I'm overspending and not show me where or give me opinions of where then how can you say that I'm truly overspending?"
"I'm not going to micromanage his budget," said District 1 Commissioner, Rod Cleveland.
Cleveland has been outspoken many times in the past on the budget surrounding the sheriff's office. He has said many times before that he believes the sheriff is overspending but could not point to anything specific.
"You have to manage the revenue as sheriff that is given to you. The county only has a finite amount of money," said Cleveland.
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But if that's the money that is needed to make sure the public is safe than it is needed, right?
"Again, there's only a finite amount of money that the county collects from the taxpayers. There is a finite amount of money from the public safety sales tax that is collected. We know what that amount is. So, we know what we can authorize and have available for each office," said Cleveland.
If the population grows like it has in every county then wouldn't the need for more money grow?
"We have Moore Police, we have Norman Police, we have Noble Police, we have Lexington Police. The statutory unconstitutional priority duty of the sheriff is to maintain the jail. So they maintain the jail. The second would be law enforcement. Cleveland County has grown but the incorporated area hasn't grown that significantly. So, while I agree, yes we need to have a balance and everything the bottom line is that we have a balance and we have to fund all of county government and everything," said Cleveland.
Sheriff Amason said he believes he and the commissioners need to sit down together to figure this out. While he said he has gone over the details of the budget requests each time, he said he feels the commissioners don't believe the numbers.
"Until I can get a healthy working relationship with these other commissioners I'm going to continue to fight for what is right," said Sheriff Amason.
Would you get together with him and figure this out? Work together to find out why the budget is estimated to cost so much.
"No, no it's not all on his shoulders, it's been on everybody's shoulders. It's occupied a lot of time of every county officer, the treasurer, the assessor, the court clerk, the county clerk, the other two commissioners, and everything. I would say to him, this is nothing to do with jeopardizing public safety. This has nothing to do with him personally. This is like what I said, we look at our budget, and we know the finite amount of money that we have. We try to be good stewards of the public's money as best that we can."
There is a second part of a state audit surrounding spending at the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office that is said to be released later this year. Sheriff Amason said that he is confident nothing big will be found within it.
