Lane County now has sheriff’s deputies on patrol for 24 hours, 7 days a week. It’s been more than 5 years since that’s been a consistent practice.
Lane County had to reduce its sheriff’s department by about a third in 2010 due to budget shortfalls. Sheriff Byron Trapp says the funding was restored last year. He’s been able to hire more deputies. It took about a year to get them trained.
Trapp: “Most importantly is the benefit to the community that they have a more prompt response to emergency calls for service. We never quit responding 24 hours a day but in the hours that we didn’t have a deputy sheriff on duty they were in home usually in bed sleeping in the evening and we’d have to call em at home, wake em up.”
During the worst of the funding crisis, deputies were only able to patrol the county 16 hours a day. Now there are at least 3 on patrol each hour. The sheriff says he’s hopeful the next budget will include enough money to continue the 24 hour patrols.