Budget Cuts Proposed to Open Jail Tower

Citing his concerns about the early release of dangerous prisoners, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky issued an “alternative” budget proposal Monday that would open part of the Twin Towers jail facility and provide for 1,100 additional inmate beds.

In a letter to his board colleagues, Yaroslavsky said he wants to cut $50 million from the $11.9-billion budget proposed recently by outgoing Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed. About $18 million of that would be redirected toward opening and running one of the $373-million jail facility’s two towers midway through the upcoming fiscal year.

The other $32 million would be used to replenish the county’s budget reserve as a hedge against future funding cuts by the state and federal governments, Yaroslavsky said.

Yaroslavsky said Monday that he was prompted to come up with his own budget because Reed’s spending blueprint failed to keep the county on a fiscally responsible course heading away from insolvency.

Last summer, Reed had proposed dramatic cuts in jobs and services to close a $1.2-billion deficit. But Yaroslavsky said that Reed was far too generous in restoring some of that money in her current budget proposal, perhaps because she had already been planning to leave the county to head the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Reed left the county last month.

“I don’t think Sally Reed’s budget really reflected the reality of our fiscal situation,” Yaroslavsky said. “She was leaving, and I just think she didn’t want to confront the issues. The county has to bring its spending into line with its revenues, but we also need to take care of our most pressing, highest priority needs. And right now that is [opening] the Twin Towers jail facility.”

Reached in Sacramento, Reed said she eased up on proposed cuts this year because the supervisors appeared unwilling to go along with them last year. “If at any time the board is prepared to go further than I did to constrain spending, I would applaud it. But I haven’t seen that in the past. They are difficult cuts. I think they can survive this year without them.”

In his letter, Yaroslavsky said it is “embarrassing” that the county built a state-of-the-art jail and cannot open it at a time when violent inmates are being released early due to overcrowding. “This situation undermines public confidence in local law enforcement, and calls into question the very integrity of the dispensation of justice in our community,” he wrote.

The proposal comes as the supervisors gear up to hash out the details of Reed’s budget in the next few weeks so they can have a working financial document at the start of the fiscal year July 1.

Yaroslavsky’s proposal is sure to prompt protests from the many county officials who would see significant cuts in their departmental budgets, just one year after perhaps the biggest downsizing in county history.

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, for instance, would see a total reduction of $4.4 million from Reed’s proposed budget and the public defender’s office would lose $3.3 million in funds to legally represent indigents. Even Sheriff Sherman Block would have to give up more than $14 million in proposed spending increases to make the money available to open the jail.

In all, Yaroslavsky is suggesting that the board reject $33.5 million in spending increases that Reed has proposed throughout the county. An additional $12.1 million in “real curtailments” also would be needed, and $4.8 million in surplus earnings that the county has seen in its pension investments also would go toward funding the jail opening and the budget reserve.

Garcetti said through a spokeswoman that he would strongly oppose Yaroslavsky’s proposal when the board takes up the budget.

“As he has stated many times previously, Dist. Atty. Garcetti strongly supports opening Twin Towers,” spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said. “He is equally firm in opposing any raid on the district attorney’s budget to accomplish this. The district attorney’s office currently is underfunded. We cannot absorb the cuts proposed by Supervisor Yaroslavsky.”

Block was unavailable for comment Monday, but Undersheriff Jerry Harper said the sheriff planned to read the proposal overnight so he could address the board today at its weekly budget meeting. Block is scheduled to address the supervisors about jail overcrowding, early release of inmates and other problems cited in recent Times reports.

Block has often said he does not have the funds to open the jail.

Yaroslavsky said that he expected complaints from Garcetti and others when he unveiled his budget proposal, but that every county department must continue to slash costs even though last year’s budget crisis appears to be waning.

“A lot of departments are going to complain that they cannot take a single dollar of cuts. That suggests they are operating absolutely perfectly and efficiently, and that is absolute nonsense,” Yaroslavsky said. “The D.A.’s office gets a 6.8% increase under my proposal. Obviously, it is less than they would have gotten [under Reed’s], but still it is a large increase--one of the largest increases among the county departments.”