Thank goodness Anne Arundel County voters had the good sense last autumn to send former Sheriff Robert G. Pepersack packing. Mr. Pepersack overspent his budget three years in 44TC row and now his successor, George Johnson, has inherited a fiscal fiasco.
When Mr. Johnson entered office on Dec. 5, the sheriff's department had a projected budget shortfall of $569,000. Mr. Johnson whittled the deficit to $300,000 by reducing overtime pay, cutting the number of part-time deputies, and ending a $50,000-a-year program that paid deputies two hours of overtime once every two weeks to wash their squad cars and clean their guns. But the department is still in the red, and the sheriff says he may not be able to create the unit that he had wanted to collect delinquent child support payments.
Mr. Pepersack denies the shortfall is as severe as county budget officials say. But that is nothing new. While in office, Mr. Pepersack -- not to be confused with his brother Norman, who has had his own contentious stint as sheriff in neighboring Baltimore County -- was constantly at odds with the county's budget analysts. Then-County Executive Robert R. Neall tried in vain to rein in the sheriff's spending, but Mr. Pepersack loudly complained that the executive wasn't giving him enough money to do his job.
The problem was that Mr. Pepersack thought his job bigger than it was. The sheriff's department provides courthouse security, transports prisoners from jail and serves warrants and other court papers. But Mr. Pepersack tried to turn the office into a law enforcement agency on par with the police department.
To his credit, Mr. Pepersack did professionalize the department and increased deputies' training, but he refused to control costs. He overspent his budget by $80,000 in 1991; by $125,000 in 1992 and by $83,510 in 1993. He spent $680,171 of the $2 million in this fiscal year's budget during the first three and a half months. On top of that, he had the gall to ask the state legislature to raise the sheriff's salary from $42,000 to $53,000 a year.
County budget officers repeatedly warned the sheriff that he was spending too much, but he replied that he answered only to the voters. So last November, voters repossessed the office. And, the mess is still being cleaned up.