King County Sheriff Sue Rahr has developed a proposed 2009 budget that she said offers creative ways to trim spending while minimizing cuts of deputies to about of what she originally feared.

She said the proposal she sent last week to County Executive Ron Sims includes the $7.5 million in cuts “I was directed to make” by Sims.

Due to a projected $68 million shortfall in King County’s 2009 budget, the Sheriff Department as well as the county’s Superior Court, District Court and prosecuting attorney’s office were asked to cut 8.6 percent from their budgets for next year.

Rahr initially said in June that there may be as many as 100 fewer deputies on patrol next year if she couldn’t find other ways to reduce spending to meet the mandate by Sims to make cuts. Now she is hoping that number will be closer to 50 – including the reduction of 18 deputies following two annexations by cities earlier this year — due to Sheriff Department staff recommending other cuts to Rahr for non-essential services and minimizing costs for things like patrol car replacement and cutting back on investigations of petty crimes.

“In listening to citizens from around King County during several recent town hall meetings, as well as from letters and e-mails I’ve received, it is obvious that cutting cops is unacceptable to the citizens, as well,” Rahr said. “So (department officials) have done a top-to-bottom examination of every service, cost center and position in the organization. We have come up with a number of innovative solutions to improve the efficiency of existing services, prioritize services, reduce expenditures, and increase net revenue to the general fund – anything we can think of to reduce the number of deputies that have to be cut.”

Still, Rahr said, the county will have to get rid of some deputies because salaries are by far the biggest portion of the department’s budget. So the department found ways to cut costs for things that don’t directly benefit public safety, like facilities maintenance and technology support, with King County getting paid for those services, which account for about 12 percent of the department’s budget.

Because other county government departments weren’t asked to make similar cuts, Rahr said, it seemed only fair to seek corresponding cuts in services provided to the Sheriff Department by other county departments.

“I believe it should be the goal of this government to make the same level of internal cuts to general government and bureaucracy that we expect the public to take in critical, public safety services,” she said. “Therefore, I have proposed cutting $725,000, or 8.6 percent, of the overhead charges I pay to other departments in King County. Again, we will endure the same level of service reduction from internal government that we are expecting the public to take.”

Kurt Triplett, Sims’ chief of staff, said that Rahr’s assertion that other county departments haven’t been asked to make similar cuts is not accurate.