CANYON CITY — Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley met with the county budget committee on April 24 for deliberations on the proposed budget for his department for next fiscal year.

For the coming year, McKinley said the department will be more fully staffed for patrol than the past year, with all five patrol deputy positions expected to be filled in the coming weeks, 10 corrections deputies and an increase in prospective job applicants this year.

“We’ve had more applications in the last six months than the previous year and a half combined,” McKinley said. “We are on the other end of COVID. It may also be that the attitude concerning law enforcement is shifting. … There’s been a shift toward the need for law enforcement. People realize there’s a need for it, which affects applications.”

The deliberation last week found some ways to save about $128,000 from an originally proposed department total of $2.8 million for next fiscal year down to $2.7 million after agreement was reached for reductions on various line items including forest patrol funds, vehicles and equipment, officials said.

Prairie City officials pledged last year to contribute $100,000 for additional patrol coverage in the city, and Grant County Treasurer Julie Ellison said the pledge is worked into the sheriff’s budget proposal for next fiscal year.

“We do not have a 100% guarantee on that because their budget isn’t done,” Ellison said. “But it helps immensely.”

Prairie City Mayor Ed Clark, who came onto the city council in August of last year and became mayor after Scott Officer stepped down in February, said he was not part of the original discussions regarding that funding pledge but plans to have a conversation with McKinley about the matter this week. Prairie City plans to begin its budget deliberations on May 9, for approval sometime in June, Clark said.

“This year we haven’t gone through the budget process (yet), so I can’t speak on it one way or another, but I am concerned over the overall cost of it,” Clark said. “As a small city, every penny counts, and that is a pretty large sum of money to come up with on a yearly basis. That is part of the conversation we’re going to have.”

Other budget requests from McKinley, presented in a March letter to the budget committee and treasurer, included the need to promote two deputies into corporal positions as part of the corrections staff at a $1.50 per hour wage increase, $150,000 for three more vehicles, four new computers, a new printer, new body cameras and the conversion of a patrol deputy position into a detective position.

“(The vehicles request) was reduced to $72,000 for one outfitted vehicle,” Ellison said.

Ellison had proposed a balanced 2024-25 budget of $101 million, up about $1.3 million from $99.9 million in the current fiscal year.

Ellison’s originally proposed budget from early April projects a workforce of 79.02 full-time-equivalent employees for fiscal year 2024-25, down from 81.57 FTE this fiscal year.

More budget deliberation meetings are scheduled to take place at the Grant County Courthouse on May 2 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and May 16 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.