On Friday, the village of Lynchburg, Ohio laid off its entire police force. The village will now be patrolled by the Highland County Sheriff’s Office.
According to Cincinnati.com, all the police officers and commanders in the department lost their jobs at 4 p.m. Friday.
Highland County Sheriff Donnie Barrera said he heard about the Lynchburg Police Department getting shut down around 5 p.m. on Friday, from the former Lynchburg Police Chief.
Barrera also said he hadn’t been in contact with any other Lynchburg official as of 11 a.m. on Saturday.
In a blog post, Jeremy Shaffer, the former mayor of Lynchburg, said the village had been struggling with the police budget since May 2009.
In the post, which was titled “Police Department Days Numbered,” Shaffer wrote about the “large amount of administrative duties that have been done in order to have a Police Department.”
Shaffer also said several council members came up with a list of ways the local police department could continue operating, but each of the council members also made it clear that the department might not exist in a couple of months.
In the 2009 blog post, it was suggested that budget constraints might lead to the department being closed. However, it is currently unclear if the budget had anything to do with Friday’s layoffs.
The village, which is about 50 miles northeast of Cincinnati, is home to 1,500 residents.
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