At Tuesday night's city council meeting, Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford will present a plan to roll back property tax rates to where they were last year in the hopes to regain some funding cut by the mayor in his budget for FY 2012-2013.

Monday, Rutherford sat at the front of a room of about 25 corrections officers.  He read off names as numbered balls fell out of a spinner.  To an outside observer it would look like a game of bingo, but it was actually a lottery to determine who faces layoffs first.

When deciding layoffs, the rule at the Sheriff’s Office is last in, first out.  Under civil service guidelines, when there are ties in seniority, a lottery determines the break.  This year the media was invited to attend the lottery and see how this process unfolds.

Rutherford opened the meeting to the media to try to make sure the public sees what the cuts could mean to his department.  This comes just a day ahead of a City Council meeting where Rutherford will ask the Council to give back $6.1 million, which would prevent laying off police officers, and allow a roll-back property tax rate, which would allow the corrections officers to stay employed and a jail to remain open.  While the property tax roll-back would mean the rate would rise, the amount you pay would stay the same as this year rather than dropping.

As it stands right now, 58 corrections officers will lose their jobs.  Even the most senior in the lottery today had worked with the department inside of 2 years.

One officer, Shantel Scott-Cook, started just about a year ago.  She says her husband is unemployed and she has a six-year-old son, so the possibility of losing her job now is painful.

“I work every day, I pay taxes, and I have a family- and it’s going to affect us,” she says.

There will be some changes in the list in order to account for military preference- those forms have not yet been completely filed.  Rutherford says July 30^th will be the day the list is final and these officers are notified.  If there is no action by the Council to change the Sheriff’s Office budget before August 24^th, that will be the last day for the 58 officers.  The seniority list determined today will also work as a re-hire list, however, if there are changes in the final budget.

JSO isn't going to just sit back and take these cuts in stride, though.

"It's putting us in the position where we're going to be the next Detroit," says Fraternal Order of Police president Nelson Cuba.

Cuba says the mayor's deep cuts to public safety are going to put officers at a disadvantage fighting crime on the streets.

"I call this Mayor Brown's anti-public safety budget," says Cuba.

In addition to the $22 million already cut from JSO in the mayor's budget, Cuba says the mayor unexpectedly dropped an additional $6.1 million in cuts on JSO and didn't tell them about it.  Sheriff John Rutherford has responded by announcing layoffs for 95 sworn officers and more than 50 corrections officers.  But Rutherford has a plan to keep officers on the streets -- a property tax rollback that he argues would keep people paying the same rate they already pay.

"If people listen to the Sheriff and just pay what they paid last year in property taxes, this would bring $23-24 million into revenue for the city...If you paid $500 dollars [in property taxes] last year, you'll pay $500 this year," says Cuba.

Sheriff Rutherford says the savings for taxpayers aren't worth lowering the millage rate.

"What I'm asking is for people not to take a $30 savings they would have as a result of the property drop."

Cuba says Sheriff Rutherford only needs $8 million of that revenue to prevent the officer layoffs from happening.  The Sheriff has made it clear that if people don't continue to pay for certain services then those services will no longer be available.  The mayor has made it very clear that he's not raising taxes or fees.

Councilman Matt Schellenburg says it's not that easy.  He says he wants to know what happens for people who bought their home 15 years ago and are now capped at 3 percent in the home's value.  Schellenburg says they will actually end up paying more than they did last year in property taxes.

"It's kind of misleading about rollback rates and things like that.  I think you actually have to look underneath the numbers and look at individuals and what they're actually going to be paying."

Councilman Steven Joost agrees that some people who bought their houses a long time ago will pay more than they did last year.  He says making more cuts is a better way to fund the JSO, and mentioned the Equestrian Center and the Mayport Ferry as possible candidates.

Sheriff Rutherford will present his case to city council Tuesday night when they meet at 5 p.m. at City Hall.