Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper<\/a> says a proposed budget reduction could force his office to pull more than 50 deputies off the streets, warning that response times and specialized units would take a hit.<\/p>\nThe concern comes as Sacramento County grapples with a budget deficit and asks more than 30 agencies \u2014 including the Sheriff\u2019s Office \u2014 to review potential cuts.<\/p>\n
Cooper said he met with county officials about a week ago, when the Office of the County Executive asked departments to provide feedback on what a 2.5% reduction would mean for their operations. He said that would translate to a $14 million cut for his department.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s very disconcerning and the reason being in the sheriff\u2019s office, the jails are mandated. I\u2019ve mandated staff. I can\u2019t cut from the jails. Same things with courts. And besides jails and courts, my biggest other numbers come from patrol and detectives,\u201d Cooper said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said removing that amount of funding would mean taking more than 50 deputies off the streets. If forced to make reductions, Cooper said his office would have to eliminate its Homeless Outreach Team, Problem-Oriented Policing teams \u2014 also known as POP \u2014 as well as its full-time gang unit and river reinforcement team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done all these good things the last four years since I became sheriff. I don\u2019t want to slide back, and that\u2019s my concern. That we lose the ground we\u2019ve gained,\u201d Cooper said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
County spokesperson Kim Nava said the budget process is still in its early stages and no final decisions have been made.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t verify the sheriff\u2019s claim because the budgets haven\u2019t been submitted yet. They\u2019re due in March. So I know that he has projected some numbers. So we\u2019re waiting for that data to come in and be able to look at that, do a deep dive into it,\u201d Nava said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nava said departments have been asked to review reductions in a way that minimizes impacts to services and field positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have asked departments to look at things in a way where we\u2019re saying that minimal impact to services and minimal impact to field positions, right. So, the Sheriff\u2019s Office will let us know what reductions they could live with. What they can\u2019t live with,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cooper questioned the county\u2019s position that no specific number has been set.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of ironic, they don\u2019t have a specific number, yet they put the number out in the public at the board hearing and told agencies, departments, and the county to prepare for that budget cut. So I\u2019m not really sure where the disconnect is,\u201d Cooper said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The county expects departments, including the Sheriff\u2019s Office, to submit their budget proposals in early March. The Office of the County Executive will analyze those submissions and meet with department heads to discuss potential impacts.<\/p>\n
Nava said the county executive\u2019s recommendations will be released May 29, with the Board of Supervisors scheduled to take them up in a public meeting in June. She said the public is encouraged to participate in that process.<\/p>\n
WATCH MORE ON ABC10 |\u00a0Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office looking to expand K9 bomb dog unit<\/a><\/p>\n ABC10: Watch, Download, Read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"County spokesperson Kim Nava said the budget process is still in its early stages and no final decisions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-174316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento-headlines","10":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}