{"id":532,"date":"2026-10-23T20:57:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T20:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=532"},"modified":"2026-10-23T20:57:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T20:57:45","slug":"they-budgeted-the-officers-they-wont-hire-and-called-it-a-departmental-need-at-an-oct-19-council-meeting-in-leslie-georgia-police-chief-mike-allen-explained-that-the-towns-polic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=532","title":{"rendered":"THEY BUDGETED THE OFFICERS THEY WON\u2019T HIRE AND CALLED IT A DEPARTMENTAL NEED | At an Oct. 19 council meeting in Leslie, Georgia, Police Chief Mike Allen explained that the town\u2019s police budget lists employees \u201cwe don\u2019t intend to hire\u201d so the budget looks bigger and the department can \u201cwrite what we need to write\u201d without crossing the state rule that presumes a speed-detection program is about revenue once speeding fines reach 35% of the police budget \u2014 and a council member answered that he is \u201cokay with the police department\u2019s use of an inflated budget to meet a departmental need\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They budgeted the officers they won\u2019t hire and called it a departmental need. I know the sentence. It is what a government says when a law tells it how much it may take from drivers, and instead of taking less, it makes the denominator bigger with people who do not exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the record, and it comes from the town\u2019s own police chief, out loud, in a public meeting. The Americus Times-Recorder reported Oct. 22, 2026, that at the Leslie, Georgia, City Council meeting on Oct. 19, Council Member Roger Hoffman noticed discrepancies between the prior year\u2019s actual expenses and the budget. Police Chief Mike Allen explained that the department can only collect the equivalent of 35 percent of its budget on citations for speeding under 20 miles per hour, and that the budget is inflated to allow more citations. His words, as the paper printed them: \u201cWe put employees that like, we don\u2019t intend to hire in there that will kind of make it look like our budget\u2019s higher than it is so that we can write what we need to write.\u201d The 35 is real and it is the state\u2019s. Georgia Code section 40-14-11 says there is a rebuttable presumption that a law enforcement agency is using speed detection devices \u201cfor purposes other than the promotion of the public health, welfare, and safety\u201d if speeding fines equal or exceed 35 percent of the agency\u2019s budget, with tickets for more than 20 over left out of the count, and it lets the commissioner of public safety investigate and suspend or revoke a town\u2019s speed detection permit. Allen told the paper: \u201cI don\u2019t want to go over that 35% because that\u2019s going to lose us our radar permit, and then we can\u2019t enforce speed at all.\u201d The department he described is small. Allen is one of two full-time officers, with a third working part-time; he told the paper that is not enough to cover the roads and that full coverage would take four full-time officers and a couple of part-timers. His officers lack retirement and insurance. The former chief, Bob Smith, said the department used to have four full-time and two part-time officers and that \u201cthe City\u2019s always maintained that flat budget,\u201d and he put the hiring problem in one line: \u201cNobody\u2019s coming to work for 18 bucks an hour when you got them starting at 23 elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the defense, and there is a real one. Council Member Clint Ledger clarified that Allen does not set the budget, though he is involved in the process, and this is his first year doing it; the paper ran a correction on exactly that point. Allen says the point is safety, not money: drivers ignore warnings, he said, and truck drivers on Seaboard Street got warnings \u201cleft and right\u201d for about two months until citations finally slowed them down. Smith pointed to three accidents involving cars striking an elderly man as he pulled out of his driveway, and the paper notes that the expansion of Highway 280 will likely bring more traffic through town. A smaller budget, Allen said, would not stop warnings, only citations. And Hoffman, the council member who spotted the gap, said budgets move around in any year, and then gave the sentence that belongs in the title: \u201cPersonally, I\u2019m okay with the police department\u2019s use of an inflated budget to meet a departmental need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buck says the last time he got a ticket he asked the officer if the town was hiring, and the officer said not really. Deb says she has budgeted for a second freezer since 2009 and has never once bought it, which she insists is different. I love them. They are seasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDepartmental need\u201d is the alibi. The empty positions are the story. Sit with it until it confesses. The state wrote a rule to stop towns from turning a highway into a cash register, and the rule measures a ratio, so the town learned to feed the ratio a fiction. The phantom officers do not patrol anything. They do one job: they sit on a spreadsheet and make the real tickets legal. Meanwhile the officers who do exist work without retirement for $18 an hour, and the town\u2019s answer to a staffing crisis is to budget people it will not pay and fine drivers to stay under a line drawn around people who are not there. I am not against a cop stopping a truck on Seaboard Street. I am not asking for a camera vendor to come in and do it by mail for a cut; that vendor would call the fines a service. I am asking why the state\u2019s idea of protecting me from the speed trap is a fraction, and why the town\u2019s idea of obeying it is fan fiction with a line-item. Both are the help. One wrote the 35. One padded the 100. The cardigan stays. Fill the notebook. Then ask, out loud, how many people on your town\u2019s payroll exist only so somebody else can be ticketed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n