The commission-approved 2026 budget will cause cuts to police services, according to Platte County Sheriff Erik Holland.
On Jan. 12, Holland penned a letter to Platte County Commissioners asking for them to amend the budget to give employees in the sheriff’s office and the county prosecutor’s office a 5 percent pay increase instead of the approved 2.5 percent. County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd also wrote a letter to the commission, reiterating Holland’s call for action and proposing a timeline for amendment of the budget.
Both letters, and a string of email transcripts, appear in their entirety below.
“The Commission Approved Budget’s 2.5 percent increase places the Platte County Sheriff’s Office about $10,000 to $15,000 behind the other comparable agencies’ starting salaries,” Holland wrote. “As you are aware, we do not compare ourselves to the Kansas City Police Department due to vast differences in tax base between Platte County and Kansas City. Nevertheless, we compete with, the Kansas City Police Department for people and a number of former Platte County deputies now work there. I do not want to see us return to the years were we could not retain good staff due to insufficient pay. Between 2019 and 2022, the Sheriff’s Office lost at least 32 people to higher paying jobs.”
If the commission refuses to fund the 5 percent salary increases – which Holland said would still place Platte County behind several other local jurisdiction salaries – he will be forced to fund the salaries through internal transfers from operational funds.
“Unfortunately, doing so will slow down or stop several activities and projects,” Holland said.
Holland listed areas of enforcement negatively impacted by this reallocation of funds:
• Patrol operations
• Investigative operations
• SWAT team
• Communications and 911
• Animal control
• Information technology
• Fleet operations
Meaning the sheriff’s office would need to discontinue animal control services, make cuts to training and equipment for officers and would be unable to replace six patrol vehicles scheduled for retirement.
During a commission session held Wednesday, Jan. 21, Holland reiterated his statements during public comments.
“I can honestly say this is the first time I have stood in front of this commission disappointed,” Holland said. “This ongoing discussion regarding compensation of staff is in my mind a matter of ‘won’t’ rather than ‘can’t.’ I don’t expect us to agree on every topic, in fact I think us disagreeing is healthy. I do expect officeholders to respect each other. I do expect professionalism between officeholders and I do expect us to listen to one another. I feel this commission has fallen short in those areas.”
He accused commissioners of not bothering to read the departmental budget request he had submitted and being dismissive of his concerns about retaining and attracting good employees.
Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker responded, stating he had spent more than two hours with the sheriff discussing their rationale.
“We are not operating on a balanced budget,” Fricker said. “Yes, the auditor gave you a balanced budget, but that doesn’t mean the revenues equal expenditures. In fact, expenditures far exceeded revenues to the point we had to move millions of dollars from reserve funds to operations to cover expenditures. I explained that in detail. We have been funding the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor’s office for every single dollar they’ve asked for in the three years I’ve been here. And here we are in a year that expenditures exceeded revenues by millions of dollars. That can’t continue.”
He said the budget expenditures for the sheriff and prosecutor have increased by 29 percent each year for the past three years. The approved 2026 budget is essentially $25 million, compared to a budget of just over $18 million in 2025 and almost $16 million in 2024.
“That trend will sink the county,” Fricker said. “You may have issues figuring out how to make your $25 million dollars work within your office, but the commission has bigger issues. That is, number one, to keep the county solvent and in good fiscal condition so that the taxpayers don’t have to make up the shortfall. We will not put this county in poor financial condition because you can’t tighten your belt.”
“Mark Twain has a famous quote about ‘lies, damn lies, and statistics,’” Holland said, noting that a lot of things get wrapped into the sheriff’s budget, including the county-wide emergency radio system. There are also costs associated with boarding inmates elsewhere due to overcrowding at the jail.
“The idea that we do not engage in fiscal responsibility and taking multiple areas of county operations, including some that the county commission is responsible for that we do for agreement, to act like we spend willy-nilly is insulting,” Holland said, before leaving the podium.
Zahnd also spoke at the meeting, though his time at the podium was truncated by Fricker.
