Sheriff prepared to sacrifice work-release

Minimum-security confinement program runs about $1M a year

The Lake County Sheriff's Office budget is getting trimmed again, and the sheriff said he would rather dissolve the work-release program than take deputies off the street.

Sheriff Mark Curran said the department was recently informed that it must cut another $1.2 million from its budget.

"I have a concern with anyone getting taken off the street," Curran said of deputies.

Eliminating the work-release program -- a minimum-security penalty for people convicted of minor crimes -- would save about a million dollars, he said.

"The work-release program is a tremendous waste of money. Only 25 percent of them pay something, and of those they pay very little to nothing," Curran said, explaining that the program was supposed to be pretty much self- sustaining -- drawing revenues from offenders.

If he has to choose between sacrificing the program and taking officers off the street, "I would take away work- release every time," Curran said.

People who are sentenced to work-release could be jailed or managed with electronic monitors, Curran said.

He said he had his office take the initiative to reduce expenses and enhance revenues. Last year, his office was 7 percent under budget.

"That's unheard of in the public sector," he said. "I think we've been excellent stewards of the taxpayers' money," he said.

The department's budget reductions include $845,000 in wage savings by reclassifying positions; $400,000 in wage savings by reducing overtime in court security; eliminating the use of 70 pagers; reducing training to mandatory classes; switching telephone service from Sprint to Verizon; eliminating inmate programs like Netflix, movie licensing and newspapers, and reducing extradition expenses by using department employees.

Revenue enhancement has included increasing ticketing and parking fine enforcement; implementing a bonding fee to cover processing costs, and charging a processing fee for money that is given to inmates.

More fees have been generated by an increase in foreclosures, civil process services, eviction services and copying services. Curran said the revenue enhancements comes to about $922,000, all of which is deposited in the county's general fund.