Created: 6/17/2009 5:25:02 PM 
CAMDEN COUNTY, GA -- Instead of focusing on crime and making arrests, these days new Camden County Sheriff Tommy Gregory spends a lot of time worrying about money.
With a reduced budget from the county, he has sent a letter to all employees letting them know layoffs are coming.
"It's gonna lead to layoffs. We've already laid off people, we've reduced salaries, we've taken furloughs, we've missed paychecks," says Gregory.
He says he will lay off 10 to 15 people and will still run out of money before the end of the fiscal year.
It's only about a 1% cut in county funding, but Gregory has also lost other sources of funding.
For years, money seized in drug arrests on I-95 through Camden County was a source of funding through a federal seized asset program.
But now Gregory says the county is no longer allowed in the program because of an investigation into how those funds were spent in the past.
"We're working very diligently to get back in it, but that used to be about $20 million we could tap into when the county's funds weren't there."
"We're here to help, anything we can do with cost saving initiatives, we're here to partner with the sheriff, so hopefully there's some solutions working together we can assist him," says County Administrator Steve Howard.
Some county commissioners say there are still areas of waste where Gregory can make more cuts.
And they say bottom line is there is not more money to give the Sheriff without raising taxes.
"We're not going to lose officers on the street. I ran on a platform of providing a certain level of public safety and we're gonna do that," says Gregory.
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