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, just maybe a little more than most.
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 has increased. There was talk about cutting back or even eliminating some special operations programs like the K-9 and SWAT operations, but it hasn’t happened yet.
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 reductions either didn’t happen or were far less drastic than proposed.
Most interestingly, however, is that a few months before the last round of budget cuts, Sac County Sheriff John McGinness 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 am not sure – as many of the cutbacks were not as bad as first feared and Sacramento County is not known as being a hotbed of support for the Second Amendment.
Nonetheless, this raises some interesting questions: Are California counties seriously considering arming the public as a fix for law enforcement budget cutbacks? Is this ever smart policy? And will other counties and states follow suit?
More trouble on the horizon
The coming fiscal year looks even worse. Sacramento County is talking about a $166 million shortfall. This could mean a reduction of over 600 jobs countywide 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. Those who survive the cuts would be concerned strictly with paper shuffling. No field enforcement of any kind would be undertaken. This would save about $28 million. Further, 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. Sheriff McGinness has also stated that the investigation budget would be completely cut. I find it hard to believe that there will be no budget to investigate rapes, murders and kidnapping. However, there is already almost no investigation done for property crimes like burglary and auto theft, so I guess it’s possible.
The idea is spreading
Sacramento is not the only California county thinking about issuing more gun permits. Just up the road in Stanislaus County, increasing gun permits is becoming a big issue in the election of the next sheriff.
The current Stanislaus sheriff is in a close race with the chief of police in the city of Turlock. Recently, the current sheriff suddenly decided that he is going to drastically liberalize his gun permit policy. The chief of the Turlock P.D., however, is not a fan of gun permits. So it looks like the issue could become a major factor in the race.
Are these county sheriffs (and sheriff-hopeful) crying “wolf” on the gun permit issue in order to get a bigger piece of the pie? If so, it seems to have worked for McGinness – at least in this fiscal year. But in the coming year, will there even be any pie left to slice? If not, could increasing gun permits seriously become our response to cuts in the law enforcement budget? I don’t know. But I guess the taxpayers and citizens will find out in a few weeks.
As for Sheriff McGinness, he has announced that he will not run for re-election this year. I guess he doesn’t want to oversee the dismantling of his agency. And frankly, I can’t say that I blame him.