Staci Bengogullari hunts for grocery specials and scours department stores for deals on kids’ clothing.

She’s a penny-pincher, in other words.

So it’s no surprise that Bengogullari almost single-handedly reshaped how the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office brings fugitives to Colorado Springs.

Her adept use of the Internet, contractors and a free interagency network are expected to save taxpayers up to $90,000 this year, far more than her salary, Detentions Bureau Chief Paula Presley said. The office planned to spend $190,000 this year to return fugitives from places as far away as Massachusetts and California.

“You should manage it like it’s your money,” Bengogullari said, “because it could benefit the county in another way – equipment for deputies or shots for kids.”

Bengogullari began working extradition travel in March 2008 as one of her many duties in the warrants division. When she checked online booking services to verify airlines’ arrival and departure times to ensure deputies could make connections, she realized the travel agency charges were higher.

After repeatedly noticing the higher rates, she asked her boss to lift a county policy that forced her to book through an agency. He did.

The Northwest Shuttle has also made a difference. The shuttle, started in 1979 in Washington, is a network of law enforcement agencies scattered across 16 Western states, including Colorado. It costs nothing, but it can be tricky patching together trips planned by various departments to relay a prisoner from county to county and state to state.

Given more time to set up trips, Bengogullari has doubled the number of times the shuttle was used last year.

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