Countywide : Cities May Pay 6% More for Deputies

The cost for police protection in the five Ventura County cities staffed by sheriff’s deputies will increase by 6% if supervisors approve rate increases on Tuesday.

The higher costs to the cities of Thousand Oaks, Ojai, Fillmore, Moorpark and Camarillo, which contract with the county for police services, reflect increased expenses for salary and benefits, insurance, training, office supplies and dispatch services, sheriff’s officials said.

“It’s the county’s policy to do full cost recovery,” said Robert L. Riggs, the sheriff’s business manager. “If a certain city benefits from a coffee machine, then they should pay for it. The county taxpayers shouldn’t pay for it.”

But the 6% increase is difficult to bear for a city like Camarillo, which spends $3.7 million of a $25-million annual budget on police services, said City Manager J. William Little.

“That’s about $220,000 for our city,” he said. “We are already tightening our belt and we will definitely be tightening it further.”

Assistant Sheriff Richard S. Bryce acknowledged that the recession has made for difficult economic times for the cities. But he said his department has had to absorb cost cuts in the past year and the cities will have to do the same.

“They either build in the cost increases into their budgets each year or they make the cuts just like we do to live within our budget,” he said.

The increase raises from about $390,000 to nearly $410,000 the annual cost of staffing one patrol car for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for one year. Riggs said the Sheriff’s Department figures it takes almost five people to continually staff a patrol car, considering time away for sick time, vacation, court testimony and training.