CRAIG BEACH — The village of Craig Beach will contract with the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office for policing services, only days after most of the police department resigned.

At Thursday’s regular meeting, county commissioners approved a resolution allowing the sheriff to sign a three-year contract with Craig Beach under which the village will pay $90,000 per year for police coverage. That is about $10,000 per year more than the village’s police budget.

The budget for policing in the village was $80,000, $50,000 of which was supported by the village’s police levy. Mayor James Becker said the village paid the salaries for the police chief and lieutenant from the village’s general fund.

On Tuesday, four of the seven officers on staff at the part-time department submitted letters of resignation, which the village council unanimously accepted. Those include Chief Kyle Pettus, Cmdr. Crystal Casterline, Sgt. Renatta Griffith and Lt. Richard Johnson. Sgt. Michael Hudson and Patrolman Ernest Hudson, as well as a seventh officer on active military duty, did not submit letters, and Becker said he is not certain what will happen with them.

Becker said the village knew the resignations were coming and had already discussed the matter with county Sheriff Jerry Greene.

“I talked to the sheriff about coverage and, honestly, I think it’s a lot better of a deal than we had,” Becker said. “They left about $20,000 allotted to them for wages that they did not spend, and that was one of the issues – we were not getting the coverage.”

Becker said all of the officers worked part time, including Pettus.

“I don’t think any of them have a police job elsewhere; they all had security jobs at places like the Cleveland Clinic,” he said. “Some, we’d only get three to five hours per week out of them. They worked when they wanted. A lot of times people didn’t show up, and it was all daytime hours. They never worked at night.”

Becker said the village will benefit from the sheriff’s contract because of the assets it brings to the village, such as the Mahoning County Drug Task Force.

Becker said the problems began in November when Pettus was spending money without council approval.

“He thought he should have his budget and be able to spend it how he wanted,” Becker said.

He said Pettus was temporarily laid off for a few days when the police department reportedly used a social media page not approved by the village to throw jabs at council members.

“I said you need to take that down right now, because that’s not going to help anybody, and he didn’t do it,” Becker said. “I laid him off for a couple days, then he came back, but it was always an issue after that.”

Becker said that a month ago Pettus received a letter from Mahoning County Auditor Ralph Meacham explaining how police department budgets work and how the department should interact with council to obtain approval for spending.

He said Pettus resented that.

The issue that perhaps brought an end to the village’s police department had to do with police cruisers and how the department sought to obtain new ones.

Becker said the police asked the council for money to buy a used cruiser months ago.

“We have a newer one that’s going to be paid off this year, and the plan was to buy another new cruiser when that one was paid off,” Becker said.

Instead of waiting, he said, police found two used units for sale from the Sagamore Hills Township Police Department in Summit County.

He said the department then began collecting money for the cruisers.

“That’s not legal. They can’t collect money in the village’s name without council approval,” Becker said.

He said he told council’s public safety committee chair, Robert Andrea, that the department had to stop the collection immediately. That was last week.

Becker said he places all the blame for the conflict on the police department.

“They got into a bad relationship with council, and they were putting the squeeze on them for money,” he said. “None of them ever went to council to see what they could do to fix it.”