TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Sheriff Chris Nanos is asking the Pima County Board of Supervisors for more than $7 million above his approved budget for the next fiscal year, which starts on July 1. He’s still talking to the county about the money figure and it’s an issue that’s going to be talked about at future board meetings.
However, last board meeting Supervisor Matt Heinz made a motion to not approve any additional funding for the Sheriff’s Department until they turn over information about how they will correct their spending.
Instead Supervisor Rex Scott made a motion to have the county’s budget align with Nanos’ budget.
“We are stewards of the taxpayer dollars, so it is incredibly important that we know how those dollars are being spent,” Heinz said.
Nanos said part of the more than $7 million that he is asking for would be used for staffing.
“Let’s reduce our overtime by getting our staffing numbers right,” Nanos said.
A year ago, Nanos said they used $9 million for overtime. This year, he said they spent $5 million and have a goal of getting it under $3.6 million next fiscal year.
“The strategy should never be, hey let’s pay overtime. Let’s not hire people because it’s cheaper to pay overtime,” Nanos said.
Some of the overtime, he said, is due to people going on leave such as parental leave, so he needs to fill their positions in the meantime.
However, Heinz feels like the overtime costs the county and taxpayers too much.
“Overtime can be used to inflate your aggregated income for a year and that is the basis of your retirement dollar figure,” Heinz said. “That could lead to massive, massive inflation in what we have to pay for retirement benefits for decades.”
Heinz feels like Nanos is spending too much, which he said could mean cuts to other departments.
However, Nanos said he only overspent his budget in 2023 by $1.3 million. He said that was less than one percent of his total budget and was only because he was surprised by a County decision.
“We didn’t realize that we were given pay raises but not funded, so we needed to catch up,” Nanos said.
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Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
