Sheriff’s Costs for Overtime Up 750% Since ’80

Throughout the 1980s, while Orange County struggled to accommodate galloping growth in the face of increasingly tight government spending, the Sheriff’s Department racked up huge bills for overtime, running a tab that could top $12 million this year, county records show.

Some of the increase is beyond the department’s control, but overtime spending has leaped by more than 750% in 10 years--up from $1.4 million in the 1980-81 fiscal year. The increase deeply troubles some budget officials and members of the Board of Supervisors, who worry that ballooning overtime expenses by the sheriff are robbing other departments of badly needed funds.

For while the sheriff’s overtime budget has soared, other areas have faced severe cutbacks: County indigent medical services absorbed a $13.6-million cut this year--more than half the program’s total budget--and several shelters that house runaways and troubled young people may be forced to close in January for lack of funds. All five shelters could be kept open until the end of this fiscal year using less than a quarter of what the sheriff expects to spend in overtime.

“The sheriff’s got the responsibility to get the job done efficiently and meet the demands of the community,” Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said. “You don’t like to see a lot of overtime, and you don’t like to see it get worse every year.”

Sheriff Brad Gates, who oversees a total 1990-91 budget of $142.3 million, downplayed the rising cost of overtime and said salary increases and overcrowded jail conditions were to blame. “In that kind of overcrowded situation, you’ve got to have people doing the job,” he said.

Virtually all law enforcement agencies resort to some overtime, since the demands of a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation make it all but impossible to avoid. But it’s an expensive habit, and not all sheriffs’ departments have relied as heavily on overtime as Orange County.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department--which authorizes 200 more positions than Orange County in its 1990-91 budget--expects to spend $5.1 million on overtime this year. San Bernardino, a slightly smaller department than Orange County, has budgeted $2.8 million in overtime. And though Los Angeles has budgeted $30.2 million, that covers an 11,800-employee department, more than five times the size of its Orange County counterpart.

On a per-employee basis, San Diego expects to spend about $2,700 a year for overtime; Los Angeles, despite the vastly different size of its overall operation, averages about the same. San Bernardino, the area’s most frugal department when it comes to overtime, has budgeted for an average yearly payout of about $1,600.

Orange County, meanwhile, expects to pay about $5,500 per employee.

That would be a concern in any year, but in today’s jittery budget environment, it’s doubly so: The supervisors passed a tight budget in July and have implored county department heads to hold down costs as the county wrestles to stay in the black. With a midyear budget review next month expected to reflect a deepening fiscal crisis, the call for spending restraints has grown even louder.

Still, despite the board’s pleas, projections by the auditor-controller indicate that the sheriff’s salary expenses are continuing to grow and could exceed the department’s budget allocation by as much as $4.3 million--a figure Sheriff’s Department officials dispute, though they agree that the department is running over budget. If that continues, it will compound the county’s financial woes and could force cancellation or postponement of a bevy of programs, including a planned earthquake-resistant renovation of the central courthouse.

“Is the sheriff’s overtime a concern? Yes. Do we need to manage it? Yes,” said Ronald S. Rubino, the county’s assistant administrative officer for management and budget. “We’re meeting with them now, and they know that we need to do something about it.”

Indeed, Sheriff’s Department officials say they are preparing a list of cost-saving measures and have already begun requiring that all overtime requests be submitted to upper-level bosses for approval.

But wresting control of the overtime budget is a task fraught with problems, ranging from public safety concerns to the well-being of Sheriff’s Department deputies. Without proper backup, sheriff’s deputies could be put at additional risk, and some of the deputies have become so accustomed to getting overtime that they now consider it part of their income.

“We try to tell our people to live within their base pay,” said Robert MacLeod, general manager of the 1,200-member Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. “But for some of them, overtime becomes a matter of their salary, and when it dries up, then they really get hurt.”

As a result, when Rubino and the county administrative office move to curb the sheriff’s growing overtime budget, they sometimes meet with powerful resistance. Fueling the debate are safety concerns as well.

“I’d like to see Ron Rubino . . . go over and work the IRC (Intake-Release Center) without somebody to back him up,” MacLeod said. “I’d like to see Ron Rubino out on patrol not knowing whether someone could come to his aid because the overtime budget was too small.”

Sheriff’s Department officials are less pointed in their remarks but agree that the debate about overtime has strained relations between the sheriff and the county administrative office.

“We’re not in an adversarial situation with the CAO; I don’t want you to think that,” said Undersheriff Raul Ramos. “But we have to fight for what we have. We’re out there protecting the people of this county, and we don’t think the budget reflects that, so there are disagreements.”

Ramos and other sheriff’s officials say that while the overtime bills have mounted, some of the reasons for the increases are beyond the department’s control. A 1984 California Supreme Court ruling known as “Madera,” for instance, said that deputies who are on call and restricted to a particular location during their lunch breaks should be paid for that time.

Not all counties pay that type of overtime, but by agreement with the local deputies’ union, Orange County does, and as a result, nearly a third of the department’s overtime budget goes for so-called “Madera pay.” Overtime expenses have also grown along with salaries, Ramos said, so that even in years when the department’s overtime hours remain relatively constant, overtime expenses grow.

“We’re trying to manage overtime,” Ramos said. “But we can’t manage Madera, and we can’t manage the courts.”

Supervisor Don R. Roth, chairman of the county board, acknowledged that some issues will continue to drive up the sheriff’s overtime and that the county should never expect to see it eliminated altogether. But Roth argued that the time has come for Sheriff Gates, who is elected and does not report to the board, to examine his management practices and curb his rising overtime costs.

“We’ve reached a critical point in this county,” Roth said. “People have always liked the idea that law enforcement and fire and paramedics are untouchable, but we’ve gotten to the point where they are touchable, and we need to deal with this budget.”

SHERIFF-CORONER DEPARTMENT OVERTIME

1980-81: $1.4 million

1990-91: $12 million*

* Projected

Source: Orange County budgets, 1980-1990

SHERIFF’S DEPT. OVERTIME * Per employee: San Bernardino: $1,598 San Diego: $2,684 Los Angeles: $2,754 Orange: $5,555 * Overtime budget divided by total employees Source: Sheriff’s Department budgets