Toledo skyline along the Maumee River, July 2022. Photo by MrJacon000, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sheriff Mike Navarre asks for $3.75 million more next year — a $47.9 million general-fund request for 2027, up 8.5% from this year’s $44.1 million — as commissioners pressed him to cut 13% to help close a projected $27 million shortfall. No budget has been approved.

Per Navarre’s slides at his Oct. 27 budget hearing, meeting the target would cut about $5.7 million from this year’s budget, with a projected 44 layoffs, loss of 10 vacant positions, and closing one jail floor — the fifth floor, now holding 98 inmates, dropping capacity from 403 to 305. These are the sheriff’s projections, not a decision to close the floor.

Higher wages drive most of the rise, including a 6% raise commissioners approved after a fact-finding hearing. Navarre said deputies are “still grossly underpaid,” citing a new sheriff’s deputy at $27.25 an hour vs. $32.51 for a new Toledo officer. His proposal budgets 20 fewer positions, plus higher food and medical contract costs and a jail camera upgrade.

Commissioner Pete Gerken told Navarre “I don’t see any attempts” toward the cut, and counting everything raised said “you’re asking for a 40% increase” — a comparison against the 13% cut target, not against this year’s budget, where the request rises 8.5%. Gerken warned other county offices could be asked to backfill the request; Commissioner Anita Lopez said the board had not made that decision. Board President Lisa Sobecki said it is “kind of a sad day for Lucas County.”

Springfield and Monclova townships pay the sheriff for added patrols. County Administrator Jessica M. Ford puts the disputed amount at about $840,000 using 2026 wages. Gerken says those payments leave the countywide budget covering part of the cost and said “I can’t support a contract that’s not fully cost recovery.” Navarre said the revised deals “did not cost the county a nickel,” that townships pay assigned deputies’ full 2027 wages and health care, and that if both deals fall through the county would lose $3.3 million in township payments. New deals go to commissioners, with Monclova trustees considering theirs Nov. 2 and Springfield trustees Nov. 3; neither township nor the board has approved them.

Source: Lake Erie Inquiry.