RIPLEY, Ohio – During the Jan. 23 Village of Ripley council meeting discussions were held about the proposed 2024 budget cut to the Ripley Police Department.
Residents of the village along with Ripley Police Chief Corey Herren spoke in front of the village council members in further discussion about this years budget.
Village residents of the public spoke out at the meeting voicing their opinions about the proposed 2024 Police Department budget giving support to the department and how important it is that they feel Ripley should remain having a 24 hour Police Department.
According to reports in the Ripley Bee newspaper, “In 2023 the Ripley Police Department’s budget was nearly $600,000, but that was due to additional funding left over in the village’s general fund from the sale of a building to Metal Works.”
Council members stated that the 2024 proposed Police Department budget would amount to around $300,000, half of what it received last year.
During the Jan. 23 meeting Herren along with the Assistant Chief of the Police Department presented the council members with three different papers of outlined costs’ and budgets that could be reviewed and taken into consideration when moving to finalize the 2024 budget.
If the current proposed $300,000 budget gets approved Herren explained that the Police Department would have to lay off some of the officers due to cost.
“So again I gave you guys three options uh the first option is the first page which is only with one full time police officer, second page would be for two full time officers and then the third page will be for three full time officers. That is the best numbers I can come up with I cannot go any cheaper than that” Assistant Chief stated.
With these three options the Police Department provided to the village council it would mean that there would be hours during each week where no officer is on duty patrolling the village or available for emergencies.
This would essentially leave officers to work 12 hour shifts at the department and according to the assistant chief hours for that would look to be around 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
During the continued discussion in the meeting with Herren and the council last years final cost for the police department was provided by the department itself to offer more information about what kinds of costs’ the department has and compare it to the proposed 2024 budget.
Village council members explained that it is not in their interest to cut the budget for the Police Department and that they are taking into consideration additional costs’ that are reviewed and important to have money for.
“We can work our way to getting our police department back to the way it was we just gotta pay for it,” a council member stated.
(Wade Linville, editor of The Ripley Bee contributed to this story of the Jan. 23 Village of Ripley council meeting.)
