Montgomery County would train only 15 police recruits this winter, compared with a usual class of 40 to 50 trainees, under budget cuts proposed Friday by Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.
County Executive Ike Leggett, Montgomery’s top elected official, ordered all department leaders to submit midyear savings recommendations to him last week to get ahead of a roughly $250 million budget gap. Most department leaders were asked to shave 2 percent from their current budgets, but police said they were only asked to cut 1.5 percent from theirs.
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In addition to the tiny recruit class, police spokesman Lt. Paul Starks said the department would not fill vacant civilian positions.
Some of those positions have been vacant for more than a year, Starks said, adding that neither the proposed reduction in recruit class size, nor the vacant civilian positions should affect the public’s safety.
But the changes would mean “an increase in the workload for existing administrative personnel and officers. … It’s what we have to do at this point in time,” Starks said.
Kim Hewitt, a neighborhood watch block captain in Gaithersburg, isn’t convinced. She said she’s found it’s most often new officers who are “young go-getters” that respond to many non-emergency calls. “The loss of new officers has me concerned the calls won’t get attended to at all,” Hewitt said.
Starks said the proposed cuts shouldn’t have an effect on response times.
The cuts would also come at a time when Montgomery County has seen spikes in certain types of crime, including robberies by packs of young men, which have led to a booming jail population in recent months.
Leggett will pick and choose from the cuts suggested by department heads, and submit a composite list of midyear budget reductions to council members for approval by Nov. 10.
In the past, council members have rejected cuts they felt would jeopardize public safety.
Leggett said Tuesday that council members need to recognize the extent of the county’s fiscal woes.
“If you had any idea that something miraculous would happen on the state or federal level that’s not going to happen … or that I would back away from my pledge not to raise taxes this year, that’s not going to happen either,” Leggett told council members at a breakfast meeting.
