NEWSCHANNEL 5 Investigation: The Fight Against Crime is Strapped For Cash

NEWSCHANNEL 5 investigates how Willacy County's Sheriff's Department ended up with so many financial problems.

WILLACY COUNTY - From undependable patrol cars to a lack of safety vests, Willacy County deputies are working in a dangerous situation.

Willacy County Sheriff Larry Spence tells NEWSCHANNEL 5, due to financial problems, he's seeing a lot of turn over amongst deputies.

"Deputies are getting frustrated because of the salaries and no equipment," says Spence.

Less than ten deputies are in charge of Willacy County. Their patrol area 784 square miles.

Not only are they short-handed, but they have to deal with a serious lack of equipment. The department only has six patrol cars, with only four of them working.

The sheriff tells NEWSCHANNEL 5 to keep costs down they've actually started having inmates from Willacy County jail do maintenance on the patrol cars.

The reason for all the shortfalls? Some people blame the former Willacy County Auditor Armando Rubalcaba. He pleaded guilty to embezzlement back in 2004.

The FBI says he stole $200,000 from taxpayers in Willacy County. After that, the county began laying off workers, cutting benefits - anything to save money.

The current county auditor refused to comment on the finances. So we pulled financial records and found out the county isn't doing that bad. It has over $3.5 million in the bank.

The sheriff's department is set to get a quarter of that, a little more than $840,000 in 2008. So we wondered why they don't have proper equipment. We went to the Willacy County Commissioners Court and found out there's a lot of finger-pointing going on.

Commissioners blame Rubalcaba and a lack of information from the sheriff's office.

They tell NEWSCHANNEL 5 the county is paying for insurance on 19 patrol cars, since the sheriff hasn't provided a list of cars that have gone out of service.

The sheriff says he's personally handed the list to several county auditors, but it's never made it to the commissioner's court.

Spence tells NEWSCHANNEL 5 he will once again take the list to the commissioners. For now, two cars were donated by Kenedy County.