County OKs $20-Billion Budget

Basking in the rare fortune of a robust treasury, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Monday unanimously approved a $20-billion spending plan for next year that promises big new investments in public safety.

But even amid the plenty, the supervisors -- who as elected executives have ultimate responsibility for running the nation’s largest county government -- are still tussling with Sheriff Lee Baca over management of the Sheriff’s Department, which has a budget of more than $2 billion.

For months, the board has been impatiently demanding a plan from Baca for modernizing the county’s overcrowded and violent jails.

And on Monday, the supervisors moved to impose additional control over how the sheriff patrols unincorporated areas of the county, complaining that Baca is giving short shrift to the needs of about 1 million county residents.

“My residents in my area want to be treated like citizens and be getting the patrols that they should be getting,” said an exasperated Supervisor Gloria Molina, a persistent critic of the Sheriff’s Department whose district stretches east from downtown Los Angeles.

Molina and board Chairman Mike Antonovich co-wrote a draft agreement between the supervisors and the sheriff dictating levels of service in unincorporated areas, where about 10% of county residents live.

Despite pleas for more time from a deputy of Baca -- who for months has been kept on the defensive by the board -- supervisors indicated that they want to conclude the highly unusual agreement next week.

The tension between the supervisors and the sheriff comes at a time when more civility might be expected.

Unlike previous years when tight budgets forced cutbacks and closures, Los Angeles County is enjoying one of its healthiest budget years in recent memory.

The strong real estate market has filled public coffers with property taxes and allowed expansion in county services, including more nurses for county hospitals, more help for the homeless and more staffing at troubled juvenile detention facilities.

The budget approved Monday will also boost arts spending and fund new facilities to store bodies at the coroner’s office.

But over the last two years, Baca has been among the biggest beneficiaries of the county’s new largesse.

Last year, the supervisors boosted spending on the Sheriff’s Department by $150 million.

And on Monday, the board moved to add more than $350 million to help Baca ease persistent overcrowding in adult jails that has forced the sheriff to release more than 150,000 inmates early over the last four years.

The plan should provide enough to allow Baca to open new beds at several jail facilities.

Baca plans to keep female inmates at a reopened lockup in Lynwood, freeing space at the high-security Twin Towers Jail in downtown Los Angeles for more dangerous male inmates. Many of those men are currently held at the less secure Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

Other facility improvements may be approved later, including a potentially controversial reopening of the Sybil Brand Institute for Women in Monterey Park. On Monday, several of the facility’s neighbors came to testify against that plan.

The budget plan will also fund raises approved earlier this year that may ease Baca’s job in recruiting and retaining deputies.

But despite all the new resources, the supervisors and the sheriff continue to squabble over the pace of improvements.

Molina and Antonovich, whose districts include large sections of unincorporated county land, also stepped up demands that those areas receive better patrol service.

The two supervisors have long complained that the sheriff favors cities that pay the department to provide police services.

But Baca -- who unlike most other county department heads cannot be fired by the board because he is elected -- has refused to be hurried.

“I don’t think you rush into a restructuring plan,” the sheriff said Monday. “Going in with a broad brush or something that is too specific is not giving the board my best work.” Baca, who has been in office nearly eight years and was recently reelected, plans to deliver his plan July 11.

In the meantime, he said he is untroubled by the board’s criticism. “The board and I have never not gotten along,” Baca said. “Their concerns are my concerns.”