Council Tentatively Approves Los Alamos County Sheriff’s Office Proposed FY 2018 Budget

Los Alamos County Sheriff Marco Lucero presents his proposed budget this evening to the County Council. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

Scene from this evening’s County Council meeting in Council Chambers at the Municipal Building. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

Sheriff Marco Lucero addresses Council this evening in Council Chambers. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

Staff Report

Los Alamos County Sheriff Marco Lucero presented his proposed FY 2018 budget this evening to the County Council. The council voted 5-2 to tentatively approve the proposed budget as presented with the addition of a placeholder line item for a fulltime office specialist for the sheriff’s office. Council Chair David Izraelevitz and Council Chris Chandler voted against the measure.

Council will negotiate in greater detail with the sheriff about his duties, the addition of an office specialist position and other issues related to the office during a council meeting in June.

Significant Accomplishments and Budget Highlights of the Los Alamos County Sheriff’s Office presented:

• The decrease in the budget over FY2017 is due to Council transferring  responsibilities and budget to the Police Department during FY2017.

• The budget for the Sheriff Office was cut from $85,411 to $15,510. A budget revision for FY2017 may be necessary and will be presented to Council for consideration on May 2, 2017.

• $65,336 was transferred to the Police Department and the remaining $4,575 was transferred to the General Fund.

• This decrease significantly impacted the Sheriff’s Office in its ability to provide quality services to the community.

• Staff was terminated, duties were transferred and the Sheriff’s Office was brought to a point of not being recognized at all by Los Alamos County Officials as an existing elected Office of the County. ATTACHMENT C

Budget Summary Presented:


Solutions

• After the November vote, the people of this county chose to retain and have an elected Sheriff’s Office and demanded that Los Alamos County Council recognize and support the elected Office of Sheriff.

• I believe that it is the duty of this council to listen to the voice of the people and provide the necessary resources to have a functioning Sheriff’s Office in Los Alamos County.

These are the basic items that will give me the ability to move forward and provide the professional services required of the Sheriff’ Office.

• The budget options for a total of $348,118 are to support the reallocation and expansion of duties of the Sheriff’s Office to include:

• Full-time Undersheriff

• Full-time Office Specialist

• Three part-time/reserve deputies

• Training

• A ¾ ton truck and passenger vehicle

• Communication equipment 

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