No layoffs of any Berrien County road patrol officers are in the cards at this time, even with funding for them having been taken out of the state budget by a line item veto by Governor Whitmer. Berrien County Administrator Bill Wolf says he remains hopeful the money will be restored by lawmakers and the governor, though those talks have soured this week over demands by Republican leaders that she sign a new law limiting her office’s ability to move around money in the budget. Sheriff Paul Bailey said at Thursday’s Board of Commissioners meeting that his office is losing about $400,000 from the veto. Wolf said the county has $1.5 million in the budget for contingencies and rarely has to dip into it, so even if the veto isn’t reversed, the county can absorb the financial hit in the current fiscal year.
