Supervisors Oppose Vote on Corrections Dept.

A majority of the five-member San Diego County Board of Supervisors expressed opposition Tuesday to placing a measure on the June ballot calling for the creation of a corrections department to solve the county’s jails woes, but postponed making a final decision on the issue.

In a last-ditch effort to keep alive his calls for the speedy approval of a corrections department, board Chairman Leon Williams, with the support of Supervisor George Bailey, persuaded the board to order the drafting of a measure as the deadline for the June ballot nears.

The supervisors postponed a vote to place the measure on the June ballot until their Feb. 27 meeting--the last chance for them to decide before the March 9 ballot deadline.

The unexpected announcement by Sheriff John Duffy that he intends to replace all deputy sheriffs working in the county jails with lower-paid correctional officers, coupled with a county staff report stating that the county can trim jail costs without creating a separate corrections department, apparently derailed the move toward the new system.

Although Supervisor Susan Golding agreed to support drafting a ballot measure, she made it clear that she wants further discussions to determine which of the two--the Sheriff’s Department or the corrections department--would be better suited to operate the jails.

“The current sheriff has changed his position dramatically,” Golding said. Until this week, Duffy had insisted that deputies were needed in the jails.

“And the staff report is a very important document,” Golding said. “I would want everybody to have a greater opportunity to review it as well as the discussions that have already surfaced. There are a number of questions that I still have. . . . It’s not going to be an easy task to convince me to put it on the June ballot.”

Supervisor Brian Bilbray added, “I want (creating a corrections department) to be the last option taken.”

The staff report says that, by employing lower-paid correctional officers instead of sheriff’s deputies as guards at the county’s six jails, the county could save as much as $23 million over the next 10 years.

Based on the report’s conclusions, the board Tuesday unanimously restructured the salary level of existing correctional officers. The supervisors established a more extensive career path for correctional officers by using an eight-step pay scale that would pay correctional officers salaries ranging from $26,058 to $37,258.

County officials said much of the savings can be achieved by employing such correctional officers rather than deputies, who receive salaries ranging from $30,652 to $49,257.

Golding and Bilbray were joined by Supervisor John MacDonald, who also said he wants other options to be explored more thoroughly before he will support creating a corrections department.

Specifically, MacDonald asked the county counsel to investigate the possibility of the board hiring the sheriff to run a corrections department, which, theoretically, would make the sheriff accountable to the board.

Several of this year’s sheriff candidates--Jack Drown, Jim Roache and Vince Jimno--came before the board Tuesday and pledged their support, in varying degrees, to employing correctional officers, but opposed creating a corrections department. Only candidate Ray Hoobler supported removing the jails from the sheriff’s control.

“I have stated from the first day of my campaign that assigning sheriff deputies to the jails is a misuse of highly trained personnel,” Hoobler said. “They would be better utilized guarding the public, which is what they are trained to do in the first place. The responsibility of operating the jails should be under the jurisdiction of the county.”

Accountability was one of the major issues leading to the debate about creating a corrections department. In recent years, the supervisors have expressed their frustration over their inability to monitor Duffy’s actions as budget overruns were recorded and reports came in of deputies abusing and harassing jail inmates.

The only way to gain accountability, Supervisor George Bailey said, is to create a corrections department run by a civilian director who reports directly to the board.

“I grant you that you can do the same thing (achieve savings without creating a corrections department), but the problem is you would not have the same amount of accountability,” Bailey said.

“Right now we don’t have the ability to regularly investigate how things are run in the jails,” he said. “We have the grand jury, but they only investigate after major problems have surfaced.

“Year after year, we hear about problems of administration, budget overruns,” Bailey said. “We need to have accountability for what is going on now. Personally, I would like to move in right now and create a Department of Corrections.”