Law Enforcement Leaders Warn Against Funding Cuts

The county’s top law enforcement officials say supervisors are in for a fight if they make sweeping changes to an ordinance that guarantees hefty funding for public safety departments, saying dramatic change will “cripple law enforcement’s programs and harm the safety of this community.”

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said Friday he favors a compromise to a proposed 3.75% cap on annual budget increases. But, he added, if supervisors take the extra step of agreeing to suspend public safety funding when overall finances are thin, he said it would be illegal and a betrayal of voters’ will.

“It’s the people’s ordinance,” he said, referring to 50,000 signatures that the sheriff and district attorney gathered prior to adoption of the ordinance. “Not mine, not the sheriff’s, not the board’s.”

Sheriff Bob Brooks said he too would seek compromise. But if none is found, Brooks suggested he and Bradbury might join forces to pass another initiative that ensures public safety departments would continue to receive generous funding each year.

Supervisors John Flynn, Steve Bennett, Kathy Long and Judy Mikels have said they are willing to take a serious look at county administrator Harry Hufford’s proposal, which would slow the growth of public safety budgets and make $4 million available next year for mental health services, road upkeep, pesticide regulation and other county programs.

Brooks said he would like to continue talks with Hufford on potential compromises. But so far, he doesn’t like what Hufford is trying to sell.

“There hasn’t been a proposal I’m comfortable with at this point,” he said.

In the strongly worded letter--which includes a quotation from Thomas Jefferson and compares the current battle to the sinking of the Titanic--the men argue the county’s crime rate has dropped more than 30% since the ordinance’s introduction.

“The draconian cuts being proposed . . . would translate quite simply into too few cops on the beat and too few prosecutors in the courts,” the letter states.

Records show budgets for public safety have swelled about 70% since 1993, while the county’s general fund budget had a 29% increase during the same period.

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Supervisors passed an ordinance in 1995 guaranteeing that all sales tax revenue generated by Proposition 172--$45 million this year--would go to the county’s four public safety departments: sheriff, district attorney, public defender and probation.

On top of that funding, supervisors agreed to give the same departments generous guaranteed inflationary hikes drawn from the general fund. Those increases, averaging between 7% and 10% a year, are the focus of Hufford’s proposed changes.

Because the inflation formula is automatic, supervisors have little flexibility to move money around when emergencies arise, Hufford argues. Unless changes are made, “the ability to manage the financial affairs of the county’s budget grows increasingly difficult,” the chief administrator states in his report to supervisors.

Hufford said Friday he has no intention of backing down. In addition to altering the inflation formula, Hufford will ask supervisors Tuesday to consider adopting a “trigger” that would allow them to suspend the ordinance entirely when necessary.

Hufford said he wants to see the board pass the cap on budget increases, and put the trigger issue to a public vote.

Brooks said he was suspicious of giving such powers to the supervisors without a strict definition of what constitutes an emergency.

“If you look at the history of the county, we declare an emergency every year and always have a surplus,” he said.

Supervisor Frank Schillo, who remains opposed to any changes, said he didn’t think there was any room for compromise.

“I haven’t found a legitimate reason. Public safety is the foundation of our society and to tamper with it is saying we’re lessening our intensity against the bad guys,” Schillo said. “The whining by other departments is totally uncalled for.”

But at least two supervisors appear to be leaning toward Hufford’s recommendations.

Flynn, among the majority of supervisors who approved the ordinance in 1995, says reports showing a growing disparity between department funding indicate it may be time for a change.

“We have to ask the question: Can we afford a Rolls-Royce Sheriff’s Department?” Flynn said. “Maybe a Ford Thunderbird would suit us better.”

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Bennett said he attempted to find an alternative formula to the one Hufford has presented and has been unable to come up with something better.

“It’s the only workable formula I’ve seen out there,” he said.

County union chief Barry Hammitt said it may be time to put the issue before voters again.

When the Board of Supervisors passed the original ordinance it was after a spirited campaign by then-Sheriff Larry Carpenter and Bradbury to whip up support for law enforcement.

“The last time the only choice people had was, ‘Are you for public safety?’ ” Hammitt said. “The way you can pit the issue now is whether or not the voters want to spend sales tax dollars to provide windfall retirement benefits, or do they want libraries, hospitals, clean air and flood control?”