Sheriff claims County Executive playing political games

MILWAUKEE- Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has accused the County Executive and others of conspiring against him in order to damage him politically.

The spark for this latest controversy was a JSonline article about deputy overtime.

The article reported his department was spending tens of thousands of dollars in deputy overtime.



Clarke believes he is forced to do so because of budget cuts by County Executive Abele and his refusal to supply him with more boots on the ground.

Clarke recently requested 137 new sheriff's deputies.

Since 2002 the number of Sheriff's deputies have been dwindling, however Abele wasn't elected until 2011.

In 2014 there are 245 deputies, in 2002 there were 646.

Overtime hours reached 90,015.1 in 2013, the highest since 2008.

According to number's from the County Executive, the Sheriff's budget accounts for 24 percent of the county's overall tax levy and his budget has actually grown 60 percent 2001.

Abele said no other department has seen growth like that and most departments are doing more with less.

The County Executive said the Sheriff should be optimizing his resources like other departments.

Last year, for example, deputies were assigned to monitor the courthouse, despite the county already paying over a million dollars to separate security officers to do that job.

Abele said the Sheriff's statements are not about safety or the good stewardship of tax payer dollars.