Unless Island County government finds a way to staunch the current budget-bleed, the state of local law enforcement will continue to deteriorate to the point where even cops won’t know where to turn for support.

This was the dour picture Sheriff Mike Hawley painted for the county board of commissioners at Tuesday’s preliminary 2003 budget hearing. To emphasize his point, Hawley held up a sample no-confidence ballot currently being circulated within his own department, aimed at his capacity to lead.

“It’s employees who are stressed, burned out and angry,” Hawley said, calling the no-confidence ballot “a perfect indicator of the situation.”

“They feel they don’t have the backing of me or the public,” he added. “They want to lash out.”

Hawley, an incumbent who is running as a Republican for his third term in the sheriff’s office this November, is immune to votes of no confidence. Only voters can remove him from office. But he believes the ballot circulation may be an indicator of frustration over budget issues.

The situation, he said, grows out of a combination of withering county revenues and severe staff cuts that have all but crippled his department’s ability to respond to a growing rural population with increasingly big city problems.

“I can’t emphasize enough that we’re just a disaster waiting to happen,” Hawley told the board. “I cannot stand here and say that people are safe out there right now.”

In order to save money this year, Hawley said, he’s been forced to eliminate a chief criminal deputy, a lieutenant and detective position, as well as leave five currently open positions unfilled. The county’s Special Weapons and Tactics team has disbanded as well, and there has been no mandated training for officers.

Such cuts have led to $253,255 in savings, though after such expenditures as retirement cash-outs, overtime and contracted specialty pay, Hawley pegs the actual savings at only $63,000.

To give color to such numbers, Hawley presented a chart comparing 911 calls between 1990 and 2001. The percentage of total calls rose 246 percent; for instance, assault calls rose from 238 in 1990 to 726 in 2001. The number of burglary calls almost doubled.

Hawley said he just doesn’t have the workforce to support such demands around the clock. More cuts could mean there would be periods in the early morning hours in Island County when no sheriff’s deputies are on patrol.

“There’s no place else to steal people from,” he said. “We’re going to literally have to go to on-call staffing,”

Such shortfalls will have repercussions.

“If we can’t get to a crime, we can’t solve it,” Hawley said.

An ongoing budget crisis will especially hamper traffic enforcement, which Hawley characterized as nearly non-existent already. He called his office’s DUI enforcement “pathetic,” and said the lack of deputies on the road is the direct cause for a low number of drunk driving arrests.

The commissioners responded sympathetically to Hawley’s concerns, but stressed that the entire county was working under similar constraints. Commissioner Mac McDowell complimented what he saw as Hawley’s “great presentation,” but questioned the idea of holding the law and justice budgets sacred while cutting everything else.

Board chair Mike Shelton said that with the loss of funding such as the I-695 backfill money provided by the state and sales-tax equalization revenue, this year is “not a pleasant time” for anyone in county government.

“I can’t imagine what our legislators were thinking,” Shelton said of the recent budget cuts.

The board discussed potential revenue sources such as floating the so-called 911 enhancement levy, which would bring law enforcement about $550,000 in additional revenue. Commissioner Bill Thorn also suggested making creative use of the approximate $700,000 in the rural counties funding approved this year in the legislature — creatively enough to fund additional officers. However, Shelton expressed some ambivalence over the idea, warning that rural county funds are designated specifically by the legislature for bolstering economic infrastructure.

In the end, it was both Hawley’s and the board’s frustration that left the most lasting impression.

“Decisions have to be made,” Hawley said, “and for me as a manager, the sooner the better. Even a wrong decision is better than no decision.”