Summit County sheriff Jaime FitzSimons yesterday posted a video to Facebook, in which he accused the county of slashing his budget in retaliation for a recent wage lawsuit.
Today, Krystal 93 talks with county manager Dave Rossi about the sheriff’s claims and viral video, now with 200+ likes and 12 shares.
“I don’t know why we can’t sit down and work through these things, and why the choice is to go to media with a produced, slick video,” Rossi says. “Scaring the public is not the way to collaborate.”
Wages are the biggest expense at the sheriff’s office. In four years, since 2021, payroll has nearly doubled, from roughly $9 million to almost $17 million.
It is now rumored that sheriff’s deputies will take a pay cut next year if the county does not approve another budget increase.
“That’s not true,” Rossi says. “Nobody is clawing anything back and no salaries are being cut in any budget, including 2026.”
FitzSimons claims the county is flush with cash. He believes a $40 million reserve fund should cover public safety expenses, saying in the video, “if they follow through with budget cuts it will be our community that pays the price.”
“Let’s say we did close our deficit using our reserve funds,” Rossi says. “We would be fundamentally out of money in 2029. That $40 million represents about three months of expenses for the county.”
Rossi believes draining the reserves would cause even bigger issues, calling that money a “rainy day fund” for emergencies, not operating expenses.
Summit County still needs to trim more than $5 million for next year. Staff has just over a month to balance the budget – and more Federal cuts are looming.
“We have a lot of things on our plate that $40 million is designed to be ready for if needed,” Rossi says. “Everybody wants a little piece of the pie and that pie is shrinking.”