Sheriff warned on spending

Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil is threatening the financial health of the entire county government because he spends too much money with too little oversight, county administrators said Monday.

The warning about the sheriff's office is included in the proposed budget submitted Monday to county commissioners. The sheriff, who oversees the county's largest department, has been over budget the past two years and is expected to spend almost $5 million over his $54 million budget this year.

The 2016 budget recommends about $60 million for the sheriff, but Neil has requested almost $8 million more. The county officials who wrote the budget refused to give him the money, saying the sheriff's chronic overspending makes it difficult to make long-term plans and threatens the ability of other county departments to operate.

"To go about expanding the sheriff's office at the current rate ... puts at risk the fiscal health of the county general fund and robs Hamilton County's other elected leaders of the ability to make critically needed investments in their offices," Budget Director John Bruggen wrote in a recent memo about the sheriff's spending.

While much of the growth in the sheriff's office is explainable, Bruggen wrote, the office is not adequately tracking its spending and has not developed a long-term strategic plan.

"We are lacking any shared plan for how growth will continue, what the sheriff's key objectives are, or where the end-point is," Bruggen wrote. "We don't know what the sheriff's priorities are, and our experience of 2013, 2014 and 2015, have led us to believe that the office may not be willing or able to manage to a figure administration deems feasible."

Neil, a Democrat, said his office has struggled with expenses inherited from the previous regime of Republican Sheriff Simon Leis, and that many of the new positions the office has created were paid for by eliminating higher-ranking and higher-paying jobs in management. He said two recent audits concluded his office is under-staffed and under-funded.

"I will continue to do more with less and make the public's safety my top priority," Neil said.

He also hinted that some of the criticism might have more to do with politics than money. "As sheriff, I serve all the people of Hamilton County and I'm not going to play political games with our public safety," he said.

Republicans controlled the sheriff's office for years before Neil was elected in 2012 and a GOP candidate, former Cincinnati Police Capt. Gary Lee, announced last week he'll run against Neil in 2016.

The sheriff's budget once approached $80 million a year, but it was dramatically scaled back after the recession and the closing of the Queensgate jail. In Leis' final year in office in 2012, he stayed within his $52 million budget.

Neil has faced criticism from the two Republican county commissioners, and the budget submitted Monday by County Administrator Christian Sigman echoes those concerns.

"At this time, we cannot discern what the sheriff will actually spend in 2016," Sigman wrote in the budget.

The budget is a recommendation to the three county commissioners, who can make changes in the coming weeks before voting on a final budget.

Commissioner Greg Hartmann said the sheriff's budget is crucial to the county's fiscal health because it is by far the largest part of the entire budget, representing about one-third of all general fund spending.

"The sheriff's budget is a challenge," Hartmann said. "It's important the sheriff make that a priority."

Commissioner Todd Portune, the lone Democratic commissioner, said the sheriff shouldn't be singled out for criticism. He said other departments, including Republican Joe Deters' prosecutors' office, also have spent more than county administrators budgeted.

"The sheriff's office becomes, I think, the target of choice in these discussions," Portune said. "This issue is one that we have got to insist is followed and adopted across the board. We've got to have that for everybody or this budget process doesn't work. It becomes a house of cards."

The total general fund budget of $209 million is about 4 percent larger than last year's budget. The general fund covers the budgets of most county departments. It does not include most of the $1 billion that flows into Job and Family Services and the Metropolitan Sewer District, which are bankrolled through levies, rate payers and state and federal money.

Other highlights of the proposed budget:

• A 3 percent pay raise for county employees. This would be the first full-year raise in nine years. Other pay increases have gone into effect mid-year, but this one would begin in January.
• A temporary increase in the real estate transfer tax to help pay for the county's 911 emergency communications system until commissioners settle on a permanent solution. The tax on property owners who sell their property would increase from 2 mills to 3 mills and would raise a total of about $3 million.
• A $2 million contribution to the Port Authority to help prepare large sites for businesses considering locating in the county.