Erie County Sheriff's Office serving community

Guest Editorial by John C. Garcia

Erie County Sheriff’s Office

As your Erie County sheriff, I take the responsibility to be efficient with your tax dollars very seriously. Earlier this month, our partners in the legislature passed a budget that will allow the Erie County Sheriff’s Office to continue doing just that.

Believe it or not, we have the exact same number of deputies right now as we did in 2004, the year prior to the red-green budget crisis. However, our workload is way up. Over those 20 years, calls for service have increased by 75%. Our police services division is doing much more work with the same number of deputies.

In our jail management division, we continue to do what we can with two outdated facilities. Earlier this year, we contracted a new company to manage food services at the Erie County Holding Center and Erie County Correctional Facility. I expect this will save the county hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. We have also taken meaningful steps to save on overtime costs within our jails. By the end of 2024, we project to spend between $4 million and $5 million less in jail management division overtime than we did last year.

We have also exceeded our revenue goals thanks to the aggressive pursuit of grants, reimbursements and other sources. I’d like to thank our local, state and federal partners for financially assisting us in our pursuit to provide quality public safety services.

When I was elected sheriff, I promised to modernize the Erie County Sheriff’s Office. Thanks to the hard work of our employees, we are doing that. Many of these steps require financial resources. But we have shown that modernization and financial efficiency do not need to run counter to each other. In fact, they go hand in hand.

We are achieving this as we continue to offer regional services to the entire community. Our aviation unit is teaming up with law enforcement partners to track stolen cars across the county. The newly formed community engagement team is being proactive, developing relationships with leaders across the region that will help target and reduce crime in our neighborhoods. We have the region’s only bomb squad. Our marine unit patrols 90 miles of county shoreline. Erie County Sheriff’s Office fire investigators and K-9 units are frequently requested to assist our municipal law enforcement partners.

This will all carry on, as we continue to make the most economical use of your tax dollars.

On behalf of everybody at the Erie County Sheriff’s Office, I would like to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and joyous holiday season. I look forward to speaking with you again in 2025!