JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Sheriff Rutherford says he's going to have to layoff nearly 100 police officers.
Sheriff John Rutherford says he's being ambushed by Mayor Brown, who he says put an extra $6 million of cuts into his plan for the budget. The sheriff calls the situation facing his department is grave.
In a letter to the city council Wednesday, the sheriff wrote, "I was shocked to learn that an additional extraordinary cut of $6.1M to the Sheriff's Office is now included in the Mayor's proposed budget, beyond what was originally agreed to in good faith, by both of our offices."
That dollar amount, according to documents obtained by Action News on Tuesday of last week, was more than $364 million, but the mayor presented his city budget six days later offering the sheriffs office $6.1 million dollars less in the next budget.
The sheriff says this additional cut will force him to layoff 95 uniformed police officers when he planned days ago on laying off no sworn officers.
Sheriff Rutherford claims his office through had already budgeted for JSO to save $20 million. Those cuts included closing a correctional facility and laying off 130 JSO employees but no uniformed police officers.
The sheriff is now requesting city council to use JSO's budgeted savings as a $6.1 million in credit to preventing layoffs of uniformed police, keeping 95 sworn officers from losing their jobs.
