Supes pad Sheriff's deficit with $3.4 million

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

For the first time in years, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department is fully staffed, morale is high and the community is receiving the level of public safety it expects, Sheriff Bill Brown told the Board of Supervisors yesterday.
But the department is facing a steep budget deficit of $3.7 million, some of which is attributed to drops in state sales tax money allotted by Proposition 172, while the remainder is a symptom of the department sporting a full staff of 690 employees.

“The Sheriff’s Department has been a victim of its own success,” said First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal, who became the chair of the board yesterday. “[We’re] coming to terms with a reality to fund a department that performs to the level our citizens want.”
That reality came into clear focus yesterday when the board allocated $3.4 million of the county’s strategic reserve to help the Sheriff’s Department balance its budget – a decision that was approved with a 4-1 vote by the board. The Sheriff’s Department will absorb the remaining $300,000 of the deficit.
Yesterday’s decision is just one of many budget-related crises that the board anticipates county departments will face over the next few years as the state grapples with its own budgetary woes.
Carbajal said the board’s decision to allocate additional funding to the Sheriff’s Department was the correct thing to do, but expressed concern about the county’s fiscal future.
“We’re trying to shore up the dike,” Carbajal said. But “the state’s going to come in with a tsunami of revenue cuts that they’re going to inflict upon local government.”
State budgetary issues aside, Brown said the department’s budget shortfall this year was compounded by one-time anomalies such as last summer’s Zaca Fire, which required overtime expenditures of $470,000, and the expected retirement of 25 to 30 employees this year, which is up from the historical average of 10 to 15.
In order to plan for these retirements, Brown got permission from the board early last year to overhire, which he said has been successful, but expensive.
If the Sheriff’s Department had been forced to make $3.4 million worth of cuts without the county’s help, Brown said it would have translated into the loss of 63 positions.
“It obviously would have been very devastating to front-line law enforcement,” Brown said. “It was really important to get the augmentation to the budget. I’m very appreciative and grateful that they did that. We certainly needed it.”
While Brown’s “one-time” expenditures may prove to be just that, Proposition 172 money, which he said makes up 13 percent of the department’s nearly $16 million budget, is expected to continue its decline.
Third District Supervisor Brooks Firestone, who voted against giving the Sheriff’s Department the money, said he wanted to see Brown do more within the department to cut costs.
“I think we have not been tough enough on the Sheriff’s Department,” Firestone said, adding that he believed the board “caved in” to the first request for additional funds it received.
Brown countered, “If we tinker with our organization too much we start to have problems throughout it.”
Much of Firestone’s concern stems from the reality that things are expected to get worse next year.
“The deficit is projected to continue into the 2008-2009 budget as salaries increase and the cost of services and supplies grow beyond the budget target,” the board agenda letter for yesterday’s meeting says.
Also receiving Proposition 172 money are the County Fire Department, District Attorney’s Office, Probation Department, Public Defender’s Office and the Parks Department. All of these departments could feel the effect of Proposition 172 shortfalls down the road.
Carbajal acknowledged this, but said future deficits will have to be dealt with when they arrive.
“We fear [the state is] going to cut us like never before,” he said. “We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there.”

Also at yesterday’s meeting, the board scheduled a special budget overview hearing for Monday, Feb. 25.