Block Assails $47 Million in Proposed Cuts : Sheriff: He says planned budget reduction will result in layoffs, early release of some prisoners and closure of some jails.

Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday that a proposal to cut another $47 million from his department’s budget would force the layoffs of 500 of 8,000 deputies, the release of 5,000 of 21,500 prisoners and the closure of some jail facilities.

“We’re talking about a serious threat to public safety in this community,” the sheriff said at a news conference.

The Sheriff’s Department, like other law-enforcement agencies in the Los Angeles area, already is “bare bones,” he said, and the early release of more than 20% of the county’s inmates would compound a crisis of violence in the area.

Block said county Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon asked his department three weeks ago to absorb the new budget cut on top of $66.5 million already slashed in July from his annual budget of about $700 million.

“Sometimes the people down there (at the County Hall of Administration) have difficulty in translating dollars into impact and what it means in real terms, and I don’t think they fully understand what will happen if these cuts do in fact take place . . . ,” Block said.

“I’m not saying this to try and create an atmosphere of concern or fear,” he said. “I’m telling it the way it is.”

But despite Block’s comments, Dixon said that the department probably will have to swallow the budget cut.

“It’s impossible to balance this budget and not cut the Sheriff’s Department,” he said in an interview.

Dixon added that “barring a miracle, there will be a cut that will be difficult (for Block) to cope with.” He noted that the additional $47 million the Sheriff’s Department has been asked to cut is only a minor portion of the $250 million he is asking that all county agencies cut.

At his news conference, Block also announced new steps to comply with recommendations in the recent Kolts report, which declared that patterns of excessive force and lax discipline have existed in the Sheriff’s Department.

Block said he will institute an interim system in October for tracking the records of problem deputies and will ask the county Board of Supervisors to name a civilian ombudsman, perhaps a retired judge, to review the handling of citizen complaints. He said he also envisions panels of citizens from areas surrounding each sheriff’s station to aid in reviewing disputes.

But the reforms were not the primary focus of the news conference. Block talked mostly about the layoffs that the latest proposed budget cut would force. In addition to the deputies, 200 civilian clerks would have to be laid off, he said.

With all the layoffs, he said, a “last-in, first-out” policy would be employed.

Since new officers are routinely assigned to county jails, and since his first priority is preservation of street-response units that deal with crime, Block said it would be necessary to close some jail facilities. Reducing the capacity of the jails, he said, would force the release of thousands of inmates.

With fewer deputies, Block said he would not need as many supervisors. He said he would be forced to demote many to street duty.

Block suggested that now is the time for politicians, at the county and state level, to make hard decisions. He said “partisan bickering” between the governor and the Legislature has delayed adoption of a state budget.

Not until that budget is adopted, Block said, will county authorities know how much revenue will be on hand for various county agencies.

What is going on in the state capital “is an absolute disgrace,” Block said. “What really disturbs me is when I hear the people in Sacramento say, ‘We can’t do this because it’s an election year.’

“You do what you’re supposed to do, what you’ve been elected to do. . . .”

Block said chief field deputies of the five county supervisors have expressed “shock” at the level of Dixon’s request. As for competition between the Sheriff’s Department and other county agencies for scarce dollars, Block said: “I can tell you that unless public safety and social order is able to be maintained at a reasonable and acceptable level, then all other programs are meaningless....”

County jails already are so overcrowded that inmates who have served only 65% of their sentences are being released, Block said. If thousands of additional inmates must be released because jail facilities are closed, prisoners might serve only 35% to 40% of their sentences, he said.

The threat of another huge budget cut has come as the weekly death toll from violent acts is increasing in the Los Angeles area, he noted.

If budget cuts force him to lay off members of his department, Block said, affirmative action policies will be among the casualties, because a disproportionate share of the newer employees are women and minorities.

Similarly, he said, some of the programs planned for implementation of the Kolts report recommendations may have to go. In a time of fiscal stringency, Block said, he cannot justify such programs if it means not backing up deputies in violent emergencies.

Nonetheless, he said he has taken a number of steps to bring about reform in the department, as suggested in the report from Special Counsel James G. Kolts.

For instance, he has sent a letter to all department employees warning that “appropriate disciplinary action” will be taken should anyone be found guilty of discriminatory conduct toward other employees on the basis of “race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, marital status, sexual orientation or physical disability.”

The letter warns: “Should a department supervisory member have knowledge of and fail to take immediate and appropriate corrective action with regard to any incident constituting a violation of this policy, he or she shall be held accountable.

“Any of us who is guilty of depriving someone, whether a fellow employee or a citizen, of that very essence of existence, human dignity, must re-evaluate and rectify his or her work ethic,” Block said in the letter. “There simply is no room in the law enforcement community for hostility or prejudice of any kind.”

The sheriff noted that he has been implementing promises made last month to make the citizen complaint process easier. He said he wants to ensure that no one in the department, as the Kolts report suggests frequently has happened, tries to impede the making of complaints.

In addition, Block said he is ready to allow citizen panels at sheriff’s stations to come to their own conclusions about disputed complaints.

Times staff writer Hector Tobar contributed to this story.