Chautauqua County is asking its public safety department heads to rank priorities should the county need to make drastic cuts.

During the legislature’s Public Safety Committee meeting, chairman Terry Niebel, R-Sheridan, noted the committee has been asked to rank and prioritize mandated and non-mandated services which their committee oversees, including the Probation Department, Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney, Public Defender’s Office, and Emergency Services.

Niebel said he talked to Probation Director Tom Narraway about possibly replacing full-time probation officers with part-time probation officers.

“For every full-time officer that we can not fill that position, we can use two part-time probation officers and we can save $17,000 in fringe benefits,” he said.

However, Niebel said Narraway is concerned that may violate the union contract. If it doesn’t violate the contract, Narraway would still need to see if there’s enough availability from recently retired officers or recently graduated officers to fill the positions.

Niebel insisted they’re not looking to make changes right now. “What we’re doing is coming up with a contingency plan,” he said.

Bob Bankowski, D-Dunkirk, was concerned that it appeared Niebel was advocating laying off full-time employees and replacing ones who are part time. “I was not going to be in favor of that,” he said.

Niebel agreed that the county is not looking to lay anyone off from probation. “We have to provide probation services. We have 36 full-time probation officers. Of those 36, that includes four time part-time probation officers. My question to Tom (Narraway) is if we went to six probation officers, we could save $17,000. If we went to eight we could save $34,000,” he said. He added that any changes would need to go before the county’s Human Resources Department and the union.

Niebel went on to discuss ranking the Sheriff’s Office and the Emergency Services Department.

He floated the idea of eliminating snowmobile division. “We have a lot of people that belong to the snowmobile clubs, and I just asked if perhaps we could use some of those people to supplement or take the place of snowmobile patrols,” he said.

After sharing his idea, Niebel seemed to backtrack. “Snowmobile is probably not a good subdivision to look at because it doesn’t entail as much, but it was just an example of taking a second look or re-examining how we can provide those services,” he said.

Again, Bankowski expressed his concerns. “I think you’re treading on some uncharted waters regarding union contracts and staffing and so one and so forth by trying to have someone from the Cherry Creek Snowgoers Club patrol the trails. I can’t support ideas like that. It’s not safe. It’s not what we’re doing, providing a service to the taxpayers of our county,” he said.

Bankowski instead recommended that department heads rank their own departments instead of the committee.

Niebel agreed that may be the best option.

County Legislator Dan Pavlock said although these are difficult discussions, they need to be held now. “It is important because we are expecting a pretty good shortfall in revenue for our local share, so I think some of those things need to become a reality,” he said.

Niebel said he would work with the department heads and bring back a contingency plan to the committee.