Horry officials work to balance budget, maintain safety

Horry County agencies have started work on their budgets for fiscal year 2009-2010 amid revenue shortfalls, hiring freezes, and county council looking at layoffs as options to balance budgets.

In 2003, the county started work to build two new inmate housing facilities at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center; a project that the county committed $54 million dollars.

County council justified the spending by the overcrowding problems at the current jail where jail officials have housed up to four inmates in a single jail cell because the county has no other place to house inmates.

For example, in the A-Pod, there are 42 beds but the jail houses 110 inmates in the pod, which also increases dangers for the corrections officers who have to staff the pods, according to J. Reuben Long Director Tom Fox.

A 128 room minimum security jail was set to open in December, but the opening was pushed back to Jan. 19 because the county didn’t have the staff available to open the facility.

The sheriff’s office hired 12 corrections officers, 4 corporals, and 4 support staffers to run the new jail.

But, because of the county’s hiring freeze and losing officers at the existing jail, Fox had to pull employees from the minimum security staff to fill the vacancies at the old jail.

That left Fox with 3 corrections officers to run the new facility.

Fox will hire 9 other officers on Jan. 19 to fully staff the new facility in order to open it to inmates.

That will free up 128 inmates from the existing jail.

Construction crews continue work to build a 534 bed unit at the detention center, which will require the sheriff’s office to hire an additional 101 employees to run that facility.

The entire construction project of the new jail facilities also include a renovation of the existing jail, which cost taxpayers $54 millions dollars and will continue to cost around $4 million dollars a year to operate the facilities, Fox said.

Fox said he’s not sure if the county will have the funding available to hire the officers and support staff needed to run the facility once it is finished sometime in 2010, Fox said.

Horry County Public Safety Committee chairman Bob Grabowski said he’s working to ensure public safety remains the top priority as the council moves forward on next year’s budget, “As the chair of the public safety committee, I want to make sure public safety is not going to get hurt,” Grabowski told News13 by phone Tuesday.

“We’re already at a stand still with public safety and I want to at least hold ground where we’re at. We’re not where we need to be with public safety in the county already,” Grabowski said.

The Horry County Police Department is budgeted for 316 positions, including police officers and support staff, according to Horry County public information officer Lisa Bourcier.

The HCPD currently has 304 of the 316 filled, which means the HCPD has only 12 positions vacant, but it’s not clear whether those 12 positions are only officer positions.

County agencies have until the first of January to file requests for additional personnel requests with the county, but as of this posting the HCPD has not filed any requests for additional personnel, according to Bourcier.

The county currently has around 100 vacant positions with no plan to fill them unless there’s an absolute need, according to Bourcier.