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A statistical analysis of official
Rappahannock County budget figures from the courthouse over the last 20 years helped me make my decision on whom to support for sheriff.
The results were pretty amazing, even considering some of the budget comes from state sources. The 2004 budget for our Sheriff’s Department, counting the jail, is now $1,256,504. That is almost $200 for every man, woman and child in the county, and a lot of money considering that 20 years ago, the total was only $228,338 or only a little over $35 a person —a growth of over 450 percent since 1983.
Just in the last five years since the current sheriff was appointed, the department’s budget has gone up 42 percent overall. On a dollars spent per crime-solved basis, the increase from 1999 to the beginning of 2003 was 140 percent—nearly two and a half times.
These increases are not attributable to just inflation: in the same 20 year period, Congressional and Federal Judges’ salaries have increased by less than half that much, and in the last five years by less than 15 percent, not 42 percent. Meanwhile, Rappahannock County Sheriff deputies’ salaries have declined—not risen—as a line item in the local budget. Nor are the increases due to a four-fold increase in the crime rate.
Official crime statistics for Rappahannock and surrounding counties back to 1983 from the State Police Uniform Crime Reporting Program were also reviewed. This showed that in 1983, it cost $3,512.89 for every arrest. When the current sheriff took office in 1999, Rappahannock’s average was $5,057.05 per arrest, includ
94.1%