York County deputies face staffing strain as call volume increases

Lincoln, Neb. (KLKN) — The York County Sheriff’s Office is dealing with staffing strain as the number of calls deputies respond to continues to increase.

Calls to the sheriff’s office increased from about 6,500 in 2020 to more than 10,700 in 2025.

Captain Josh Gillespie said the growing workload is taking a toll on the deputies they do have.

“We need to go through, and we need to increase staffing at some point to make it so that we don’t have guys that are working, you know, seven days in a week, which has happened in the last month,” Gillespie said. “And it’s just not sustainable for our officers.”

The sheriff’s office has also relied more heavily on overtime to cover shifts, spending 150% of what it had budgeted for overtime last year.

The department is now looking to partially fund an additional deputy this year.

Gillespie said adding another deputy could also help with retaining current officers.

“It helps us with retention and retaining officers as well because we’re not burning guys out by having them go to call after call after call,” Gillespie said.

He estimates adding a deputy could save between 25% and 30% of what the department budgets for overtime.

The additional staffing is part of a proposed 6.16% budget increase for the sheriff’s office, with the need for more funding for patrol vehicles also contributing to the increase.

Gillespie said the biggest part of the proposed increase is for patrol vehicles as federal funding the department has relied on is running out.

Without the additional vehicle funding, Gillespie said the proposed budget increase would be about 3.7%.