A very disgruntled Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to kick loose an additional $5.9 million to cover unanticipated overtime costs for the last fiscal year, which just ended. Supervisors felt blindsided that the extent of the additional costs were not brought to their attention during June’s budget deliberations or April’s budget preview talks. Supervisor Joan Hartmann asked Sheriff Brown what kind of example he thought he was setting for other department heads.
While the Sheriff has typically come in over budget every year since 2019, this was the most. Brown explained this was, in part, because the department just hired 69 new custody officers and 34 new deputies, an unheard-of accomplishment for an understaffed department. Counterintuitively, he explained, the new hires required extensive training and that training time required more experienced deputies to fill in the gaps.
Brown suggested the supervisors put a sales tax on the ballot to cover the costs. Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said a polling company had explored that option and had reported it was emphatically unpopular. Lavagnino suggested Brown was living in “dreamland” if he really thought a sales tax could possibly bail out his department’s perpetual cost overruns and suggested he stop dreaming.
Supervisor Bob Nelson said Brown needed to figure out what services the department could — and could not — provide given budget realities rather than relying upon his customary end-of-year budget infusions. Nelson called this “right-sizing” the department. Brown reminded the supervisors that public safety was the first priority of county government.
Gail Osherenko, a longtime mental health advocate, suggested Brown reduce the number of people he kept in county jail, giving one example of a repeat offender with a history of mental illness who was recently sentenced to jail for stealing four bottles of beer.
In the end, Supervisor Lavagnino made the motion to give Brown the money he sought, acknowledging the sheriff had the supervisors “over a barrel” and they really had no options.
