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ALBANY, GA --
The Dougherty County Board of Commissioner's Finance Committee met early Monday morning to review the Dougherty County Police budget with Chief Don Cheek.

Chief Cheek broke the budget down line by line for the committee before he went over the areas of concern including fuel costs and retention of officers.

The Chief then explained the department's ideas of generating revenue or saving money but says each opportunity, like charging for funeral processions or repetitive false alarms, has a list of cons that go along with the positives.

The committee thanked Chief Cheek for breaking each pro and con down for better understanding. Chief Cheek says he knows in his position it's easy to assume others know the setbacks but he wants to make sure the committee understands this is the toughest budget he has seen since he's been here.

The highest cost, fuel, raises some concerns says Chief Cheek because the only option is to reduce the coverage if gas prices don't go down.

He also says this is an ongoing process of learning how to tweak the ever-evolving budget and the department will continue to do so well after he retires in November.