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In This Issue...
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How State and County Budgets Affect Santa Cruz County Public Safety
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How State and County Budgets Affect Santa Cruz County Public Safety
By Santa Cruz Sheriff Phil Wowack
California's budget crisis has impacted every level of government: state, county, and city.
Painful cuts have already been made by local government in the form of furloughs, wage and benefit concessions and the layoff of staff.
After the recent mid-year review of Santa Cruz County finances, it is projected that local revenues could be down 7 percent or more in the coming year.
This news, combined with the state budget, has forced county officials to ask for deeper cuts in all departments for the coming fiscal year 2010-2011.
Governor Proposes Shifting
Unfortunately, the governor cites the budget crisis as the need to make tough choices, and one of his proposals is to unwisely shift state prison inmate populations to county jails that are not able to safely accommodate the increased population.
The governor's budget proposal dumps inmates from overcrowded prisons into overcrowded jails with no solution offered.
In addition to the proposal of shifting prison populations, SBX3 18 took effect on January 25, 2010.
This measure increased sentencing credits for county jail inmates and created "summary parole" (unsupervised parole) for state prison inmates.
"Summary parole" requires parole violators to now face new prosecution and increased time in county jail rather than return to state prison custody for violations of their supervised release. Taken together, these changes and proposals will put undue strain on county jails, local public safety, the district attorney's office and court system.
What State Cuts Could Mean to You
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office budget has annual expenditures of roughly $45 million dollars. This figure includes the operation of all county jail facilities, sheriff's patrol, investigations and community policing services, our records and civil processes and the security of both court facilities.
Two-thirds of the funding for these operations (about $30 million) is borne by local tax rolls and one-third (about $15 million) is dependent upon state funding.
In February 2009, local public safety programs funded by the state were switched from state general fund to revenue created by an increase in the Vehicle License Fee (VLF). At that time, the VLF increase was projected to be able to support safety services like COPS on the street, jails, district attorneys for prosecutions and juvenile justice programs.
Since February 2009, VLF revenues have been well under projections.
Even after years of cuts to these programs, VLF to local public safety is down as much as 27 percent per quarter from what was originally projected.
What's worse, the VLF authorization for local public safety is set to expire in June 2011. As mentioned above, local tax roles are down and there will never be a local revenue stream to cover shortfalls in VLF funding or to cover this revenue when the VLF expires.
With fiscal challenges locally, and the state budget proposals, sheriffs, police, district attorneys and probation departments are being asked to implement sweeping new policy changes against the backdrop of declining and expiring revenue sources like VLF.
Dumping state prison inmates into this mix exacerbates an already unstable situation for local public safety agencies and creates increased concern about safety in our community.
Power in Numbers
The California State Sheriff's Association (CSSA) represents all 58 county sheriffs in California.
The CSSA is increasingly concerned about proposals related to parole, county jails and increased local responsibility to fund safety at a time when we are struggling to manage our mandated services and inmate populations.
I have been active in the CSSA since becoming sheriff of Santa Cruz County, and I will be working closely with this organization and with local government officials to find long-term solutions to these and other challenges.
In conclusion, I believe there is a danger in balancing fiscal crisis against public safety.
I would ask that you contact your legislative representatives and urge them to make public safety funding their top priority in preparing solutions to our state budget rather than relying on local government to solve the state's fiscal crisis.
You can reach your local legislator by visiting www.legislature.ca.gov.
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