High Gas Prices Fueling Cut Backs

The drive to four dollar a gallon gas has a lot of Oklahomans on edge. Oklahoma City set a new record high average on Sunday at $3.88 a gallon, but in the Tulsa area, the average is around $3.91 a gallon. Still, Oklahoma is among just 13 states with averages under the four dollar gallon mark.

While the high cost of gas is hitting everyone hard. News On 6 anchor Craig Day reports it's a budget breaker for law enforcement agencies across Oklahoma, especially in rural areas.

Pawnee County deputies are used to fighting crime, but now the sheriff's office is faced with a budget busting battle over high gas prices.

"It's right at a hundred bucks.  Eighty to 100 bucks for the Crown Vics," said Major Mike Waters of the Pawnee County Sheriff's Office.

The department's gas costs have gone from $3,000 to nearly $6,000 each month.

"Right now, everybody is just kind of shocked.  Well we hope it goes away.  If it don't we're going to go well beyond shocked," said Pawnee County Sheriff Roger Price.

The sheriff's office is trying to conserve fuel, by no longer idling cars to keep them cool, limiting driving back to the sheriff's office for paperwork and less patrolling.

"Yes it does affect our patrolling just a little bit because we don't have the money just to go out and cruise around and look for everything like we did before," said Major Waters.

"We're not slacking on anything that is a serious nature of course we're not going to do that.  But things we can take on the phone and get a report on it, we're at the point where we have to," said Price.

The pain at the pump is really impacting rural departments all across the state of Oklahoma, just like in Pawnee County because there simply isn't enough of a tax base to bring in more revenue to fund county government.

Like many rural sheriff's, Price is forced to make cutbacks in other areas.

"We've revamped some personnel and put them in different places and if things get much worse, if we don't see relief, there's a good possibility that we'll have to let somebody go just to buy fuel," said Price.

Price hopes it doesn't come to that, but he predicts even higher gas prices will force agencies across Oklahoma to tighten their belts even more.