Deputies parked to cut gas costs

Patrol deputies in El Paso County are being asked to help trim the sheriff's soaring gas tab - by cooling their heels until there's an emergency.

Under a policy that took effect June 1, the deputies are no longer patrolling the streets in the communities that are home to about 150,000 people outside Colorado Springs.

Instead, they'll sit in their cars outside fire stations and other central locations and wait until someone in their district dials 911.

"I'm nowhere near proud of it," Sheriff Terry Maketa said of the new policy, which he billed as a necessary evil while the Sheriff's Office grapples with its share of what elected leaders in El Paso County have portrayed as a crippling budget deficit.

Until the early 2000s, the Sheriff's Office had for years operated with an annual budget of $160,000 for gas burned by patrol deputies and the unit that transports jail inmates to the El Paso County Courthouse, Maketa said. In 2004, the office spent nearly double that sum, and the tab has been on the rise every year since.

This year, fuel costs are expected to top $700,000 - even with a 20 percent reduction Maketa expects to achieve through various gas-saving measures, which also include halting separate van trips to transport rival gang members from jail to the county courthouse.

"If fuel continues to go up, it's going to continue to have an impact on our service delivery," Maketa said.

The Sheriff's Office employs about 60 patrol deputies, with six to eight deputies available per 10 hour shift in the areas outside Colorado Springs.

The new policy will mostly affect the deputies on the overnight shift because those who work during the days and evenings are tied up answering emergency calls "90 percent of the time," Maketa said.

Deputies who aren't answering a call will be asked to wait in two-person teams with their engines off. They'll rely on their handheld radios whenever possible and turn on their cars only to recharge the radio batteries, he said.

With an understaffed, overpopulated jail, too few deputies and other shortcomings, there's nowhere else to make meaningful reductions in spending, Maketa said.

The Sheriff's Office will revisit the policy within 30 days to see how it affects response times and other services for county taxpayers, he said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0366 or lance.benzel@gazette.com