SHAWANO, WI- In an effort to help reduce costs and clear up budget room, the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department will be reducing its staffing at the 2022 Shawano County Fair.
Shawano County Chief Deputy George Lenzner said they will be saving the county between $6,000 to $7,000 dollars by cutting their fair staffing in half.
“We will still be there every day, but instead of having 4 or 5 people at night and 2 or 3 during the day, we are going to cut those numbers down to about 1 during the day and a couple at night.”
The move comes after a request by the Shawano County Executive Committee for the Sheriff’s Department to cut some spending on their proposed budget, which originally came in over $500,000 more than their allocated amount from the 2021 Tax Levy.
Lenzner said much of that was from pre-approved union contracts that the County Executive Committee approved in the past that they have no control over.
County Board Chairman Tom Kautza and the Executive Committee asked the Sheriff’s Department to find some things they could cut from their proposed budget, and Lenzner said after looking, this was about all they could find.
“We pulled the complaints from the fair weekend and they were down this year,” Lenzner said. “We did not have any serious fights and disorderly were down, they were mostly just simple complaints.” He said last year, they do not have much to go off of due to it being a COVID impacted fair.
“Wednesday and Thursday night will be covered and we will have some reduced coverage the rest of the days and nights.
Lenzner said they will do this as a trial and an effort for cost-saving and see how it goes. He says he feels what they proposed as a budget is what is needed for them to provide proper public safety and any cuts will impact the public.
“We are just getting to the point where there is not much more to cut,” Lenzner said. “This is about all we could find.”
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