Sheriff Mike Navarre is asking Lucas County commissioners for a $4 million budget increase, even after offering to cut 20 full-time positions — a plan that still leaves his office about $10 million above the county’s spending target.

The budget showdown played out at the county’s budget hearing last Tuesday, where Commissioner Lisa Sobecki said on the record that she was “a little dismayed that there wasn’t an attempt to show a reduction in the budget.”

Commissioners also pressed Navarre on whether contracts that pay the sheriff’s office to patrol Springfield and Monclova townships actually cover their costs. The agreements bring in about $3.3 million a year, but county administrators believe they fall roughly $840,000 short of the true cost of the patrols.

The numbers carry real stakes: Navarre said fully hitting the county’s 13 percent cut target would mean laying off 44 employees, eliminating 10 vacant positions and shrinking the jail’s operating capacity from 403 beds to 305 by closing one floor.

This is a follow-up to ToledoBuzz’s Oct. 29 report, Lucas County Sheriff Warns of 44 Layoffs, Closed Jail Floor in Budget Standoff.

Background: commissioners have asked department heads and elected officials, including the sheriff and prosecutor, to cut next year’s budgets by 13 percent to close a projected $27 million deficit.

Read The Blade’s full coverage of the hearing.

Image: Lucas County Courthouse at night (Wikimedia Commons, photo by Joel Rossol).