Our hands were tied.'Ĭommissioners Court said the county lost about $2.6 million in federal funding when the federal inmates were removed from county jails.įor weeks, Commissioners Court held budget workshops to figure out how to balance the budget while dealing with a $5.2 million deficit. 'Until either we get an idea that there's a change with regards to the federal inmate status this is what we had to do.
The captain and deputy positions will main frozen because neither Sheriff Eric Garza nor his staff provided Commissioners Court with options of how to fund those positions, Trevino said. 'They gave us a couple of ideas on how they were going to address issues such as overtime, the meal issue with regards to the commissary and so we felt they were working with us, so we needed to try to work with them because they were trying to address the issues we raised,' Trevino said. Not included was the unfreezing of jailer positions, deputy positions and two captain positions within the Cameron Sheriff's Department, but the jailer positions are budgeted for the upcoming year, Trevino said, because the commander and major of the jail system had come up with plans on how to deal with the issues within the department. 'We moved the numbers around to make it work,' Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr.
