Despite facing a 3 percent budget cut, the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office won't be making any changes to law enforcement practices.
Kanawha Chief Deputy Mike Rutherford was in Belle Wednesday to inform mayors from towns that benefit from the East City Patrol that those budget cuts would have no effect on the program.
The East City Patrol provides coverage and support for the eight small towns in eastern Kanawha County.
"It's not going to cause a problem for any division, and it's not going to cause us to pull back from anything here," Rutherford said.
The budget cuts were passed down from the Kanawha County Commission, which is looking to cut $1 million from its budget.
The county originally asked each elected official to make a 4 percent budget cut, but that was reduced to 3 percent when the state announced that retirement payments would not be increased like the county expected.
Last year, the East City Patrol deputies responded to 1,478 calls in the eight small towns east of Charleston.
Cedar Grove led the towns in calls with 399, followed by East Bank (327), Marmet (210), Chesapeake (149), Pratt (111), Belle (97), Glasgow (93) and Handley (92).
The East City Patrol program started eight years ago as an attempt to answer calls when towns in the Upper Kanawha Valley were shorthanded and try to increase communication between police departments in the smaller towns along the river and the sheriff's office.
Many of the incorporated towns in the Upper Kanawha Valley cannot afford 24-hour police presence. Most have fewer than three officers. So the three deputies in the East City Patrol respond to calls 24/7, providing backup when needed and checking on towns that don't have city officers on patrol at night.
The program is funded with money from coal severance, and with the decrease in coal severance money in Kanawha County, some were concerned that the decline could affect the program.
"I think we all know that coal severance has taken a big hit," Rutherford said. "And that's not going to be a problem for us."
Instead, the sheriff's office set aside the money to continue supporting the program last year, regardless of how coal severance does.
While there, Rutherford also asked if any of the cities had any problems with the East City Patrol so that he could address them.
"We do not want to step on anyone's toes," Rutherford said.
Rather than stepping on toes, the mayors were very pleased with how the service worked. Several mentioned how important it was to have the program while the towns go through tough economic times.
"It could be, the way that our income is going, we may not be able to support as many police officers as we should," said Glen Chestnut, the mayor of Belle.
Reach Daniel Desrochers at
dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or follow @drdesrochers on Twitter.