In less than an hour County Commissioner Dan Haggerty will be on a local news station defending his statements he made about cutting the El Paso County Sheriff Department's budget. The county has to cut $15 million from its budget for 2011. The commissioners have already cut $7.4 million and are $3.8 million short of their goal. Sheriff Richard Wiles was asked to cut those $3.8 million from his budget.
According to the El Paso Times "The county is requiring that all departments reduce their budgets by about 5 percent after requiring 2 percent cuts last year. The Sheriff's Office, which has an $83 million budget, did not meet that target."
Times are tough for everyone even for those in city and county government. Nobody wants to see anyone loose their jobs and considering what is going on across the border nobody wants to see law enforcement be cut either.
Wiles threw a hissy fit and called Haggerty's comments "irresponsible and reckless." But if you read Haggerty's comments laying off people is only an option if Wile's can't save money in other places.
KVIA's Darren Hunt said we only had two choices, raise taxes or sacrifice safety. He and Wiles must riding in the same bus. Making those type of comments puts fear in people and forces them to make an emotional decision instead of a logical one. It makes for great ratings I guess. Come one, Wiles has an $83 million budget and he can't cut $3.8 million without laying off anyone?
This is where he as a leader make a decision. Do we really need this? Can we live without that to save people's jobs? Then if you cut every last thing possible and you do have to lay off people, witch I doubt he will get to that point, who does he need to lay off? Non essential personnel like an over paid command staff(cough cough Bill Ellis) or patrol men who keep us safe? I would take safety over Bill Ellis any day! Does anyone know how much he makes? Why do you need your personal lawyer on your staff for anyway? Doesn't the County Attorney represent the Sheriff's Department? It is in the county......
Maybe he can also stop allowing officer to take patrol cars home. Why should we pay for their gas to go to and from work? You don't believe me. Take a drive through the Tierras and count how many Sheriff patrol cars you see parked in drive ways at night.
Its the little things that we need to get rid of so we don't have to raise taxes or sacrifice safety. For instance, as soon as Wiles named his primadona Command Staff and their bios went on the Sheriff Department's website, that I assume is being paid for by our tax dollars, one of his commanders decided he would advertise on it. Commander Jesus "Eddie" Campa (Support Services Division)decided he would use the website to advertise his own business. He had the business' name and address,I'm surprised he didn't have the business hours and some sort of Internet special on it. I wrote letters and sent e-mails to many and after several months it is off now.
Richard Wiles said "I took an oath to protect the public safety,", but tif you look at the Sheriff Department's website you will see this statement "To fulfill our mission, we will strive to attain the highest degree of ethical behavior and professional conduct at all times."
Richard Wiles needs to follow that mission statemet. Calling a press conference and throwing a hissy fit is not proffessional conduct and neither is disobeyingan order. But then again Wiles' has never been known for his proffessional conduct. Oh shut up, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the accussations of him not handling Internal Affairs reports properly and retaliation that were first brought up in an article written in the New York Times and continued untill his last days of his police career. But that's a whole different post all in itself that will be written in the future.
I have plenty of friends who wear the tan or grey uniform. I don't want to see any of them loose their jobs while others get a raise and I sure as heck don't want to have my taxes raised, we are taxed enough already. Do me a favor Wiles.You gloat about being great at saving the county money, do it one more time and save people's jobs at the same time. And do me one more favor; don't have me arrested for blogging about you.......again.
Hey boss! Can I get my one call now?
A reader just notified me that Richard Wiles and his Staff use squad cars to drive themselves to teach classes at UTEP. They are paid by the university for their services. That means we pay for their gas so they can make money. How about we trim this fat?
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