The heads of Georgia’s public safety and criminal justice agencies will have to furlough employees, cut pay and freeze vacant positions to meet the 14 percent budget reductions requested by lawmakers, they said.
Officials from the departments that make up the state’s criminal justice and law enforcement system met with members of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee on Wednesday to outline their cuts.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vic Reynolds said the agency would have to narrow its priorities to meet the requirements. He plans to furlough employees in certain divisions for two days per month and freeze around 50 positions, including 28 agents.
GBI will steer its focus away from nonviolent crimes, such as theft and burglary, Reynolds said.
“The way the situation is today – just the reality is the reduction of those 28 are going to put us in a position where some of the regional offices will be below what we recommend as recommended staffing,” Reynolds said. “And we’ll deal with that. But we will still be there, be available to respond and to assist in any type of violent crime, gang related, human trafficking, child-victim crimes and things of that nature.”
State agencies were directed by appropriations leaders and the governor’s budget director May 1 to cut 14 percent from their budgets – about $3.6 billion – to balance the state’s budget amid the coronavirus outbreak that has rattled the nation’s economy.
Despite an initial 6 percent budget cut already scheduled for state agencies before the pandemic, GBI and the Department of Public Safety had plans to hire new training classes of law enforcement personnel. Those classes have been canceled to help make up the new reductions.
The Department of Corrections would close six facilities to find its 14 percent in savings, affecting thousands of workers.
Officials want to save $3.6 million by closing eight to 12 accountability courts meant to reduce recidivism and offer treatment and mental-health services to offenders. The reduction would mean 1,900 fewer people will be able to benefit from the program.
“Those people will likely end up in either local jails or prisons if they don’t have the opportunity to do this,” Hall County Superior Court Chief Judge Kathlene Gosselin said.
The Department of Juvenile justice could save $21.7 million by eliminating 500 vacant full-time positions, including 200 corrections officers. Another 175 part-time workers would be laid off, 172 of which are mental-health workers, Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Tyrone Oliver said.
Despite concerns over the loss of services and programs, Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said every agency has to make the cuts.
“We haven’t seen an agency in here that you didn’t have empathy for, whether it was education or public safety or what have you, you know, all of these are important to our quality of life,” he said.
