News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Alpena County Sheriff Erik Smith shows off pages of a presentation he gave to the Alpena County Intergovernmental Council while visiting The News offices on Friday.

ALPENA — A half-million dollar cut to the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office would make the residents of Alpena County less safe.

That is what Sheriff Erik Smith told The News on Friday when explaining the far-reaching ramifications of cuts the Alpena County Board of Commissioners may force him to make.

The cuts would be enacted if a proposed property tax increase fails in the November election.

Smith said Friday he remained unsure which positions would be impacted, but he said the job loss would likely include deputies and/or clerical staff.

He said his staff, especially on the patrol side, is already thin. Layoffs of more deputies would only exacerbate the situation and force drastic measures.

Smith said 24-hour road patrol would likely disappear.

He said having fewer police on the road available for emergencies and complaints puts residents at risk of something bad happening. He said the cuts wouldn’t just impact overnight patrols, but patrols throughout the day.

Currently, the county has 13 deputies, but some are assigned to court, one is assigned to Alpena Community College, and another is assigned as a liaison at Thunder Bay Junior High School. Yet another works with the Huron Undercover Narcotics Team and another runs Animal Control.

That leaves six deputies working road patrol. If Smith has to lay off any of those deputies, it would mean bad news for residents, the sheriff said.

“It’s pretty easy,” Smith said. “If we don’t have anyone on the roads, we can’t take calls for service. If I have to make these cuts, it will likely limit us to covering the courts and making transfers, so it isn’t just 24-hour road patrol, but road patrol overall, and all hours of the day. What we are going to be able to do is going to be very limited.”

Data Smith provided to The News shows that, from Sept.1, 2023 through Sept. 1, 2024, the department took 2,904 complaints and made 503 arrests. Smith’s office handled 476 animal-related complaints, 212 traffic crashes, and 1,883 traffic stops. Smith’s deputies also worked 68 events that needed police coverage and handled 379 inmate transfers.

Smith said other area police wouldn’t be able to entirely make up for the shortage of county police on the road.

He said local Michigan State Police troopers cover five counties and Alpena police lack jurisdiction outside the city limits.

Other Sheriff’s Office responsibilities, such as marine rescue and off-road vehicle and snowmobile rescues could also fall to the wayside, Smith said.

That would mean officers couldn’t respond to emergencies on Lake Huron, the inland lakes, or the hundreds of miles of trials in Alpena County. Smith said the State Police and the U.S. Coast Guard could respond, but it would take them longer to assemble, coordinate, and make the trek to the emergency.

The cuts would dig into non-emergency services, as well.

Smith said his office handles pre-employment fingerprinting, gun permits, sex offender registration, and other public services. He said people would have to wait longer for such services if he has to cut the employees who handle them.

“If we have to cut secretaries, the public is still going to come in for these services,” Smith said. “We just aren’t going to have people at the window to do this stuff.”

Smith said the county isn’t using the threat of such cuts as a scare tactic to get people to vote for the property tax proposal, and there are real-life consequences if the proposal fails.

“It is my job to keep the residents of this county safe, and that is what I intend to do,” Smith said. “It will just be a whole lot harder if we don’t have the deputies and services to do it.”

The county had faced a budget shortfall exceeding $1 million heading into the 2025 budget year that begins Jan. 1, but county commissioners managed to trim the deficit down to a touch more than $500,000 by exhausting several pots of money it had in reserve.

But that doesn’t take the county out of the woods for the 2026 budget year. Most of its reserve funds are nearly empty.

To help cover the gap, Alpena County has asked voters to approve a four-year, 0.7-mill property tax increase, which would raise about $800,000 a year for the county and cost the owner of a $100,000 house about $35 a year.

Election Day happens Nov. 5, but many voters have already cast ballots by mail.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.

Check out a presentation developed by Alpena County Sheriff Erik Smith below.

Alpena County Sheriff's Office Presentation by JustinHinkley on Scribd