After letting two senior deputies go because of budget cuts, some people have been asking why the Levy County Sheriff's office has made a pretty big purchase: six new police cars.
Their budget was cut by almost a million dollars, but Director of Law Enforcement Evan Sullivan says the money used for the cars could never have been used to pay for the positions that were cut.
"That money would not roll," he says. "By statute, it could not roll over. If the commissioners would give us that money back, then yes, we could have saved the two captains...but that money had to be used or given back to the county commissioners."
The cars purchased by the Sheriff's Office will be an improvement on the old ones from 2003 and 2004, with new features like LED lights on the flashers on top of the car. Sullivan also says cars go through pretty rough treatment in the Sheriff's Office because of high speed chases, etc. He says he was faced with a difficult choice:
"The bottom line is when a taxpayer calls and needs help soon, they expect a deputy sheriff to arrive and not be broke down."
Some of the money for the cars came from cash budgeted for natural disasters which never happened. And Sullivan adds the Sheriff's Office will return about $65,000 that was not used in the car purchase back to the county commission.
The Sheriff's Office says neither Captain Danny Riffle nor Gary Sache was let go for personal reasons and both were retired already.