Just up the road from me is Sacramento County, California. It is experiencing the same financial trouble that most of the state, and for that matter most of the country, is going through right now. Maybe even a little more than most. Or maybe a lot more.Therein lies the question.
During the current fiscal year, Sac County lost 748 positions, a lot of them in the Sheriff’s Department. It wasn’t as bad as they were afraid it might be, but it wasn’t wonderful. Routine patrol in the unincorporated areas was reduced. Response time to less-than-critical incidents is increased. There was talk about cutting way back or even eliminating some special operations programs like the K-9 and SWAT operations. The County Board of Supervisors found some money (largely in response to the public outcry when these proposed cuts were announced) and many of the proposed cuts either didn’t happen or happened much less drastically than proposed.
Also the Sheriff, John McGinness, announced he was not going to run for re-election this year. I guess he didn’t want to oversee the dismantling of his agency. I can’t say that I blame him.
The coming fiscal year looks worse. The county is talking about a $166 million shortfall. This could mean a reduction of over 600 jobs countywide. That is on top of the 748 layoffs in the current fiscal year.
Semi-serious proposals have been made to totally eliminate felony probation supervision. The department would be cut back from slightly over 200 employees to less than 12. They would be concerned strictly with paper shuffling. No field enforcement of any kind would be undertaken. This would save about $28 million.
The county mental health budget would be slashed by about $14 million, which would create a spillover into law enforcement.
Routine Sheriff’s patrols of unincorporated areas of the county would virtually stop. The Sheriff also stated that there would be zero investigation budget left. I admit I find it hard to believe that they would have no budget to investigate rapes, murders and kidnapping. Of course right now there is almost no investigation done for property crimes like burglary and auto theft, so I guess it’s possible.
A few months ago, before the last round of budget cuts, the Sheriff opined that he would have to start issuing more gun permits due to the potential for increased lawlessness caused by cutbacks. Whether this actually happened or not, I don’t know. Many of those cutbacks didn’t happen to the extent it was first feared. Sacramento County is not known as being a hotbed of support for the Second Amendment. Interestingly, it is becoming a big issue in the race for the Stanislaus County Sheriff, just down the road from Sacramento County. The current Sheriff is in a close race, his opponent is the Chief of Police of the city of Turlock. The current Sheriff has suddenly decided he is going to drastically liberalize his gun permit policy. The Chief of the Turlock PD is not a fan of gun permits. It could be a major issue in that race.
Is Sheriff McGinness crying, “Wolf” in order to get a bigger piece of the pie? I don’t know. If he did the last time, it worked. Is there now any pie left to slice? I guess the taxpayers and citizens will find out in a few weeks.