Funding for Public Safety Left to Judge

Interjecting pointed questions, Superior Court Judge Henry Walsh listened intently Monday as opposing legal teams in Ventura County’s public safety funding battle squared off for a critical court hearing.

Walsh’s questions and comments during the hourlong proceeding indicated he would be focusing on a single legal issue: Does a local public safety funding law illegally intrude upon the budget-setting authority of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors?

“It keeps coming back to the same thing, doesn’t it?” Walsh said at one point.

Approved in 1995 on a split vote by the Board of Supervisors, Ordinance No. 4088 directs all funding from Proposition 172’s half-cent sales tax increase to four public safety departments -- the sheriff’s, district attorney’s and public defender’s offices, and the probation agency.

On top of that, public safety departments were allowed under the law to dip into the county’s general fund to cover any increases in spending -- however much -- from one year to the next. Rapid growth and salary increases drove spending increases of 7% to 10% for several years.

But in 2001, a new county board voted to change the inflationary clause, slowing law enforcement’s spending growth to no more than the annual rise in the Consumer Price Index, or about 3%. Sheriff Bob Brooks and Dist. Atty. Greg Totten sued the county board last year, alleging that the changes were illegal.

At stake is how much money public safety departments are owed by the county. Brooks and Totten say they are entitled to more money than supervisors have allotted them and that the 1995 voter-initiated ordinance guarantees they should get it.

Supervisors, meanwhile, say the 1995 law is unconstitutional and should be thrown out.

County lawyers asked for Monday’s hearing, arguing that the law is so decisively in their favor that the suit brought by law enforcement leaders should be ended quickly.

But attorneys representing Brooks and Totten argued that there were significant areas of law at stake and that Monday’s proceeding, called a summary adjudication hearing, was the improper forum to decide them.

William Hair, who represents Brooks and Totten, and attorneys for two other plaintiffs, Citizens for a Safe Ventura County and the city of Thousand Oaks, told Walsh that the legal issues should be decided at trial.

At the outset, Walsh told the parties that he had several areas of interest. He asked Steve Mayer, an attorney representing the county board: If voters said they wanted to make public safety a budgetary priority by passing Proposition 172’s half-cent sales tax increase, why shouldn’t the Board of Supervisors honor that?

Mayer told Walsh that the local ordinance adopted in response to the sales tax increase “goes far beyond anything in Proposition 172,” because besides guaranteeing Proposition 172 funds, the county law allowed law enforcement to request additional dollars from the county general fund to cover any increases in salaries and benefits, or other costs.

That sparked another question from Walsh, who said he was bothered by language in the local ordinance that requires the county to cover “any associated inflationary costs” incurred by public safety departments each year.

“Anytime you hear ‘inflation,’ it usually means the Consumer Price Index or the Bureau of Labor index,” he said. “What rescues this from being hopelessly vague and thus unenforceable?” he asked Hair.

Hair responded that, although it was not specifically written in the 1995 ordinance, supervisors at the time had a clear idea of what inflationary costs would include.

In buttressing his argument, Hair noted that the state Constitution lists public safety as a funding priority for local government.

Walsh did not appear to be persuaded by the argument of Glenn McRoberts, attorney for the citizens group, that the local funding law is “self-correcting.” McRoberts told Walsh that voters could change the law at the voting booth if they decided it was excessive.

“It took 60 years to correct ‘separate but equal’ ... if something is illegal, shouldn’t it be addressed in a timely manner?” Walsh said.

After the hearing, both sides said they thought Walsh had conducted a fair session. Hair lauded Walsh for asking “provocative questions that I would expect him to ask.”

Undersheriff Craig Husband, who attended the hearing, said it was hard to say which way Walsh would rule.

“Both sides got their arguments in,” Husband said. “We’ll just have to see what happens.”

Walsh promised to be “expeditious” in issuing a decision.