Gage County Faces Major Budget Cuts Next Year

By Gordon HopkinsGage County may be forced to accept serious budget cuts next year. That is according to Gage County Board of Supervisors Chair Erich Tiemann, who gave a stark warning at a meeting on Wednesday, September 3 of this year while discussing the current budget, “I’m just throwing this out there. There’s a good chance we’ll be either cutting staff or retooling at the sheriff’s office, I think what we’ll probably have to do. There will probably be cuts at the sheriff’s department. There will be cuts at the roads department. We’ll have to look internally at cuts here in the courthouse. I mean, we’re going to be potentially looking at major cuts next year. This budget was rough. Next year’s budget, within the next two years, the budget is going to be even rougher yet.”Like law enforcement agencies across the country, the Gage County Sheriff’s Office has been forced to increase wages in order to recruit and maintain staff. The City of Wymore has been unable to recruit officers for its own police department and is currently dependent on the Gage County Sheriff’s Office.Tiemann said, “We’ve been able to manage a lot of that out by moving things around, but there gets to be a point where it becomes more difficult, and we don’t want to decrease our law enforcement services. The sheriff has done his best to maintain services, maintain time, maintain coverage. At some point there’s only so much you can do. We’ve talked about it for the last eight years, and he’s maintained everything.” Due to the ongoing budget crunch, Gage County currently has a no overtime policy, although that has not always been strictly enforced. That will change going forward.“We will be enforcing zero overtime more strictly. That’s going to be something that we don’t have a choice on. If there’s overtime, it’ll have to be pre-approved, special circumstance,” said Tiemann. “The sheriff’s office is going to be the one that really has to try to finagle on that.”Tiemann also noted that, to a large degree, the county is at the mercy of the legislature and proposed initiatives that could be approved by voters, “We also have to keep in mind there will be major changes within the next two years, just because of negotiations and lack of control. We can budget out anything and manage it if we can control it. These will be things that we can’t control. They’re out of our hands, but they’ll still affect all of us.”

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