Sacramento County budget cuts affect everyone — except the Sheriff’s Department | Opinion
Sacramento County supervisors earlier this year ordered every department to identify $57 million in cuts to begin filling the projected $101 million budget shortfall. The county’s new, $8.9 billion operating budget represents a 2.8% decrease from the previous fiscal year, and at least half of the projected deficit was caused by revenue losses emanating from the passage of House Resolution 1 — the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Those cuts resulted in the elimination of nearly 200 county positions and numerous social programs, ranging from foster youth transportation to public defenders.
But not at the Sheriff’s Department, which avoided nearly $8 million in cuts before the budget was approved last month and is now positioned to receive millions more. The department took a $3.4 million cut, instead.
On Tuesday, at Supervisor Patrick Hume’s request, the board will take the unusual step of reopening budget discussions outside its normal June and September hearings to consider restoring the $3.4 million to the Sheriff’s Department out of the County’s General Fund. Sacramento County Communication and Media Director Kim Nava confirmed that in the last 20 years, there has never been a formal reconsideration of the budget outside of the regular hearings.
Like every other department head, Sheriff Jim Cooper had submitted a list of proposed cuts, where he proposed eliminating funding for the Problem Oriented Policing Team (POP), the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT), Marine Enforcement, the Gang Suppression Unit and the Identity Theft Bureau.
In June, before approving the final budget, the board of supervisors voted to keep open the positions Cooper had identified for removal on the HOT, Marine Patrol, gang suppression and identity theft units.
While every other county department accepted the supervisors’ mandate to cut 2.5% of its staff and budget with grim fortitude, Cooper successfully persuaded supervisors to keep his department largely whole.
Tuesday’s scheduled vote at the supervisors’ meeting would restore the final program on Cooper’s list: the POP Team, which Cooper argues is needed to police the unincorporated areas of the county that can’t rely on city services or city police forces.
Why does the Sheriff’s Department constantly get an exemption unavailable to every other department? And why identify these programs for elimination if they’re so essential that supervisors must reopen the budget and restore millions to save them?
Perhaps because the sheriff had little reason to believe those cuts would be permanent.
Cooper, a former California Assemblymember, knows that politicians like to look tough on crime, and elected officials who cut law enforcement budgets create an easy opening for attack. With Sacramento County’s homicide rate at a 40-year low, however, Cooper should have a harder time arguing that these cuts have crippled public safety.
However, the supervisors can’t reopen budget discussions without reopening the entire budget for debate — which has left an avenue open for Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho to argue that his department also needs millions in funding restored.
Never mind the fact that Ho’s department, too, received $4.4 million in last-minute funding, reducing the county’s proposed funding cuts to the DA’s department from $8.5 million to $4.1 million. The more than 12 positions Ho warned would disappear never did, and the threat appears to have merely been used as leverage in budget negotiations.
Meanwhile, every other county department is living with the cuts. The county eliminated $450,000 for the HopSkipDrive contract whic helps transport foster children so they can remain at their original schools. Changes to CalFresh, a program which is comparable to the state’s version of food stamps, could affect as many as 57,000 county residents. The Public Defender’s Office also absorbed more than $3 million in cuts, including post-conviction representation, juvenile pretrial support and mental health diversion programs.
Apparently, in Sacramento County, budget cuts apply to everyone and everything — unless you wear a badge.
