Pike County plans to cover what it says are 155 thousand dollars in outstanding sheriff’s department bills while working out a time frame for repayment and looking at spending cuts.

Commissioners pledged yesterday (Thursday) to take care of the bills next week using revenue from a law enforcement sales tax and the county general revenue. Once that’s done, a timetable will be set to repay the loan.

In addition, the county will study potential spending cuts in the sheriff’s department before finalizing a 2016 budget in late January. The department was budgeted to operate with 34 employees, however only employs 30 at this time. Sheriff Stephen Korte said that the department is already operating with four fewer employees than budgeted and unless an additional revenue source is found the department will make additional reductions in staff by not filling vacated spots as they become available. He added that in addition to cuts to the full-time staff, due to provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act that takes effect January 1, the department will have to greatly reduce the number of part-time hours utilized.

The discussion took place after figures earlier this week showed revenue from the half-cent law enforcement sales tax is 140 thousand dollars short of projections for the year.