By Deb Murphy
In response to the budget update at Tuesday’s Inyo County Board of Supervisors’ meeting, the Sheriff’s and Probation Department heads admit budget increases are out of control, literally, out of their respective controls.
Inyo Sheriff Bill Lutze
“Personnel costs are a big factor,” said Sheriff Bill Lutze. “Salaries haven’t gone up that much,” he said noting a 2-percent cost-of-living increase. But workman’s comp, retirement and medical insurance costs have. “That’s out of our control,” he said explaining that workers’ comp for law enforcement officers has jumped significantly with the department paying rates in the same category as underground miners. “Just the cost of doing business has gone up 3 to 4-percent,” Lutze said.
His example was the bullet-proof vests required for officers. “We’ll go for a couple of years without buying new ones,” he said, “but this year we have to buy (at least) eight” at $1,500 a pop. In addition, Animal Shelter food and supplies have increased 6-percent and the department’s radio communication repeaters go up 4-percent a year as part of the department’s contract.
Probation Chief Jeff Thomson also indicated personnel costs top the list on his departmental budget. “We have a small budget to begin with,” he said. Travel and training required for probation officers is a big factor. According to Thomson POs are required to take 40 hours of training every year. For juvenile counselors and supervisors, training requirements are nearly as stiff with 24 and 40 hours required respectively.
“We try to bring the training here,” he said, “but can’t always do that.” In addition, the department has two new POs and four new juvenile counselors, all six required to take five-week Core training off-site.
Out of his office this week, Inyo County District Attorney Tom Hardy responded by e-mail: “In a nutshell, I can tell you that my increases are primarily related to personnel costs. Even though I am reducing the number of full time equivalent positions, the built-in salary and benefit costs continue to increase.”
Lutze described references to crime rates as a “two-headed monster.” “If the crime rate is up, people are unhappy; if we’re doing a good job, they talk about budget cuts,” he said. “Active patrols keep the crime rate down. If a guy’s casing a gas station and sees a patrol cars roll by” he’ll think twice about robbing the station. “I’ve been here 40 years and seen ups and downs,” Lutze said. “If we’re not out there patrolling, we’re going to have issues.”
“We get calls that are more serious, that involve groups or violent crimes, not often but when we do they can be dangerous situations,” Lutze added that on those occasions;, he’s sending back up to guarantee potentially risky situations don’t get out of hand.
Another law enforcement issue, equally out of County control was the passage of Proposition 47 in 2014, reducing non-violent simple drug possession and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. “Agencies are going to see more (of these cases),” Lutze said. According to the Sheriff, those offenses are up 48 percent in Ridgecrest. “People are slipping through the system,” he said. “It’s going to bite us.”
On the flip side of Prop. 47, the numbers are down at the Inyo County jail despite the mandate to house non-violent, non-sexual offenders by the state’s Realignment. That’s where the Probation Department’s job responsibilities have increased. Probation officers’ jobs have grown, “not in the number of cases,” Thomson said, “but in the work required. We’re supervising higher risk cases that require more case management, more one-on-one work.” In addition, the department’s pre-trial monitoring is working to keep the jail population down. “We’re spending money to keep folks out of jail,” he said “and on their way to being tax-paying citizens.”
Discover more from Sierra Wave: Eastern Sierra News - The Community's News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I like imagining High Water and Low Inyo having a point/counter point program where they do exactly what they both do on these threads on a sound stage, or radio show. I’d most certainly tune in, it’s “Edutainment”.
I’m becoming a fan. :0)
I can think of alot better things to imagine than that.
High Water, could you elaborate on what would be better to imagine about these comment threads. Are you more the Cage-Match type? Should I imagine Master Blaster and random questions like “Who run batertown?”?
LOL
Common sense solution.
If the cost of doing business increases 2-3% each year, then just trim your budget 2-3% each year. Right? And if crime is down reduce your force to numbers of past times with said crime rate. Reduction is not a four letter word.
Common sense solution
Low: Thank you for proving my point.
High Water….Maybe it’s not “priorities”…..maybe it’s because most of us know bitching about what your bitching about doesn’t do a whole lot of good….besides just making ourselves angry old people.
Things I ponder:
18 trillion dollar deficit has not moved in 150+days. Why?
Gov. Brown outlawed the word illegal. That’s illegal.
EPA just destroyed the Colorado River. But Govt. Is good!
Gas is 40 bucks a barrel. And we pay $3.75 I paid that at 80.00 bucks a barrel
Last but not least. Less than 10 comments on the county’s budget. Where are our priorities?
I feel what is going to bite us more in the end is keeping things the way they are. yes of course the public service’s and law enforcement agencies deserve to be taken care of, the way they take care of the public! Also we should take care of the teachers, coaches and health and human service workers in the same light. If we want to keep the crime rates down, focus more on education, counseling, community engagement and rehabilitation.
The Peoples rights should be protected and honored, NOT dismembered for anothers sense of security. Teach inmates as much as they want to learn while locked up, and when released we all should encourage them to be among society in a positive way, ignoring and isolating someone when they need some human interaction is a good way to keep our brothers and sisters down, I mean they pay there debt to society, why does it seem like society looks the other way when society lacks the avenues and support they need? as if the punitive ramifications of ones actions is enough to deter them from becoming a product of the environment.
It is a human need to have a sense of community or group to identify with, and it is arrogant of us to think we can separate a individuals actions from the environment they interact with, we wouldn’t blame a plant for not growing properly in our garden, we would ask what it is lacking (water, nutrients, sunlight….etc), kinda like social interaction and childhood development, things that happen that shouldn’t or things that don’t happen that should, dictate the biology and growth of the organic material in question.
No tolerance policies leave out human judgement, if you walk around with a hammer all day all you see is nails…
unfortunately its all about money circulating in order to sustain a entity, and the pursuit of money to keep up with our social environment…. does nobody else stop and ask themselves what is really going on here? and what do I inadvertently and inherently encourage through my/our traditional perpetuation of what we think is normal and accepted within our social environments?
When money dictates, nothing is sacred or optimized to its potential.
True leaders listen how, they don’t just tell how.
I like your thinking today High Water!
Lol! The last 2 articles about budget issues, a major portion of both stories, revolves around bacon, eggs and oatmeal for the jail, to eight $1,500.00 bullet proof vests. Well, if the rest of you are satisfied with there explanations for the budget issues, well then so am I. Oh, I almost forgot about, dog food for the animal shelter. This seems the bigger problem more than dog food.
http://www.inyocounty.us/EmployeeBenefits.html
Trouble : Be careful what you wish for,especially when it comes to volunteer Law Enforcement “officials”…Back about 20 years ago in a city I used to live in Oregon,they tried that,thinking it would save money,help the “real” Law Enforcement officers,and keep the criminals on their toes.Turned out to be more trouble than good….kinda like a loose-group of George Zimmerman “wanna-bees” thinking they had the authority to issue traffic citations,follow and pursue people they thought were up to “no good”,question and interrogate people on the street if they thought they were drug users or dealers….sit outside taverns at 2 A.M. thinking they could keep people from driving if they felt they were too drunk to drive,and even in some cases,if they didn’t comply to their “orders”, try to either arrest or have them arrested for drunk in public..In many,in fact probably in most cases,volunteers would be volunteers because they wouldn’t be able to meet the requirements and criteria to be REAL officers,but trying to find a way to buck that system and “play-pretend” to be officers.Ask any real Law Enforcement officers around here if they want that type of help on their jobs.
Your probably right Low. I don’t really think we need half of them anyway. I do like our volunteer fire dept. They define “help” in much more pleasant way!
Why don’t we use more volunteers?”
I hear that, the sense of accomplishment that arises when giving a piece of ourselves to benefit the community, monetary compensation can’t even compare to the reward that compliments our existence.. Money derails human integrity, and disregards our sacred connections. You feel me?