Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett met with Commissioner Hamilton Meserve Tuesday to discuss his department’s budget, after the Budget Committee tabled it Oct. 25.

Meserve was on his own because the other two commissioners were in the hospital. Also attending were County Administrator Carrie Kipfer, Finance Director Michelle Cearbaugh and Lt. Rand Maker.

Brackett said he might be able to come up with $8,000 to $10,000 by trimming various line items, but the biggest line item was personnel.

“It’s a perfect storm, with regard to this proposed deputy position,” he said. “It will never be cheaper to hire a new deputy than it is right now.” That’s because as older officers retire, especially if they have family plans for their insurance, they are on the top of the scale for pay and benefits. New, younger officers typically come in at the bottom of the pay scale and may not have dependents. “We’re paying less for new deputies than for those who left.”

Brackett said about 21 hours of overnight coverage aren’t able to be staffed appropriately. The deputy appropriated for last year was dedicated to traffic enforcement, mostly a daylight hours job.

Meserve said the main goal is officer safety, especially given the increase in call volume, which Brackett said has tripled since 2006. Given the hours involved, it is increasingly difficult to staff for the overnight hours, Brackett said. Part-timers can’t be used for those hours because they have full-time jobs during the day.

“What I didn’t hear the committee say is not to hire a new deputy,” he said. “I am recommending that we delay hiring the second deputy for a number of months, so we can give them a lower figure.”

Delaying the hiring of the second deputy by six months, with the additional trimming of the budget of about $8,000,  would lower  the increase in the Sheriff’s Office budget to 3.27 percent, from 4.8 percent.

Kipfer said she disagreed with cutting commodities budgets, such as gasoline, “just to cut the budget.” She said the gas budget was about $1,000 over now.

In response to questions, Brackett said Wiscasset’s staffing up to a 24-hour service would certainly help, and pointed out that Damariscotta also uses the Sheriff’s Office for overnight coverage, up and down the peninsula. The State Police also cease operations in the Midcoast at about 2 a.m., he said. “I am seeing many signs coming, and they’re all saying, ‘Danger,  Will Robinson,’” Brackett said.

Kipfer said, in response to a question, that funds set aside for the deputy job that wasn’t filled last year can’t go to the Sheriff’s Office. Instead, they go to surplus, and are used to reduce taxes.

A prior discussion about false burglar alarms suggested it might be possible to reduce the time officers spend responding to the 2,500-3,000 false alarms by about 50 percent if residents and businesses were charged for false alarms.  Kipfer said the cost of administering it might be higher than the fees brought in. Brackett said the goal would be deterrence, rather than making money.

Trimming the new deputy job to half of the year would save $38,076, and an expected $8,500 decrease in the buildings budget line would bring a total savings of $46,576. Brackett thought he could probably do more trimming to bring the savings up to $50,000, or an increase to the bottom line in the sheriff’s budget of 3.27 percent, down from 4.8 percent. That figure represents a decrease to the overall county budget of half a percent.

The proposal will be brought up at the Nov. 8 budget workshop.