Sheriff David Davis says right now, they have about 400 deputies, but 135 vacancies.
“Any time there’s a type of serious incident -- a violent incident, a presidential visit, or something not foreseen -- overtime is issued for that,” said Davis.
He says deputies have overtime built into their schedules.
The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office budgets $3 million for overtime, but they need another $1.3 million to pay for their extra overtime for 2019.
Davis asked Bibb County commissioners to move $1.3 million out of payroll to pay overtime costs.
Commissioner Mallory Jones proposed a solution for the deputy shortage. He sponsored a resolution to take $2 million from the county's reserves to give employees in the sheriff's office and the fire department $2,000 raises.
“We can’t wait. We have to do something about crime now,” Jones.
Commissioner Virgil Watkins supported the idea, but colleagues Larry Schlesinger, Elaine Lucas, and Joe Allen did not second his motion and the full committee never got to discuss the plan.
“We have no choice but to save our funds for a rainy day,” said Schlesinger.
Joe Allen says the amendment isn't fair to other county employees. He's trying to draft a proposal that would give employees a $1,000 Christmas bonus.
“It shocked me they put it off to the side and people didn’t want to spend any money at all. I think if you take care of your employees, they're going to take care of the general public,” said Allen.
He wants to fund that from money the county saved from changing their pension and healthcare plans.
Jones says they need something now to keep deputies from leaving.
The county's finance committee did approve Davis's plan to transfer the money to cover his overtime. That proposal still needs approval from the full commission at next week's meeting.