Good evening

Thank you for the opportunity to address each of you regarding the budget of the New Hanover County Sheriff.

I am aware of the commissioners struggle to authorize a budget without raising taxes.

As most of you know, I am a retired law enforcement officer. Several years ago the County honored me by sending me to the world's most respected law enforcement training programs where I graduated in the FBI National Academy's 180th session. I would like to repay the county with my educated study of the county sheriff's budget.

I do not claim to be an expert on financial matters, in fact I have had a few financial struggles of my own, but I have learned from my mistakes.

That is why it bothers me to see that year after year the sheriff office makes the same mistakes over and over, and yet in the grand scale of things it appears as a slight blip on the larger 250 million dollar county budget and perhaps that is why the sheriff's budget is never questioned.

I spent the last six months questioning it and have found many ways to trim away a good deal of fat.

I would hope that each of you will find the time to go thru the pages in this package prior to making your final decision on the budget.

There are many worthy needs that may be cut because of authorizing the costly requests made by the Sheriff.

And lastly, those that know me may be surprised by what I am about to say.

Perhaps a Commission can be authorized to study the possibility of consolidating the City and County Law Enforcement Agencies. When impartially judicious eyes study the budgets of the two agencies, line-by-line, it is quite possible that an effective solution can be launched in order to save the taxpayers the hardship of wasteful county spending. It could be that as the demands for security grow in the courts and governmental offices and the need to house, care for, and transport the ever growing inmate population causes strains on the departmental focus for the essential enforcement of the State laws and Statutes, time may have come to limit the Sheriff to his constitutional responsibilities and allow the City to take over some of the responsibility the Wilmington Police Department has proved so effectively be able to carry.

There is, as County Manager Bruce Shell put it, more than one way to skin a budget.