JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Corrections officers who will be laid off by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office because of city budget cuts were determined Monday afternoon by a lottery.
Sheriff John Rutherford said two weeks ago that 200 positions in his department would be eliminated, and 58 of them would be corrections officers.
Monday's lottery in which numbers were drawn from a Bingo ball machine determined the order the corrections officers were laid off and the order in which they would be rehired, if possible.
"All those operational costs are all rolled up in those two little boxes," Rutherford, pointing to a chart, told those corrections officers in attendance at Monday's meeting. "So if you're tell me I've got to cut millions -- tens of millions of dollars, there's nowhere else to go folks but to the big personnel bar where all the money's at."
All 63 community service officers were already laid off, and it's possible 95 police officers could also lose their jobs.
The City Council will vote on the final budget by Oct 1.