Sheriff Could Save $44 Million Yearly, State Auditor Says

After a months-long review uncovered evidence of “gold-plated” spending habits, the state’s top auditor concluded Thursday that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department could save as much as $44 million a year by hiring civilians instead of deputies for jail and administrative duties, and by cutting frills such as an inmate-run bakery.

Auditor Kurt Sjoberg said in an interview that he is also troubled that sheriff’s officials seem unreceptive to some cost-cutting measures, dismissing them out of hand with a “cavalier” attitude.

Echoing some of the concerns raised in a series in The Times earlier this month, Sjoberg said his agency’s 104-page report demonstrates that sheriff’s officials could cut millions of dollars in overspending in a department that lacks critical oversight from the Board of Supervisors.

In responding to the audit, Undersheriff Jerry Harper said the department is “open to constructive criticism . . . and we intend to deal with [the recommendations] in a positive way.” Sheriff Sherman Block did not respond to requests for comment.

The department took issue with some of the audit’s findings, while agreeing with others, in a lengthy formal response included in the audit. It said, for instance, that rushing into widespread use of civilians in the jails poses serious safety hazards.

The audit found that the department could save as much as $34 million a year by using more civilian employees in the jails, as many other counties already have done. In addition, it concluded that sheriff’s officials could shave almost $5 million a year by using more inmate labor and spending less on such things as employee overtime, clothing for prisoners and cleaning supplies. Another $1.2 million a year could be saved by closing a jail bakery operated by inmates, auditors reported.

While the report lauded Block’s latest plan to open the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Sjoberg and his staff were critical of the department’s initial insistence that it would take $100 million to begin operating the gleaming jail. For a year, the 4,192-bed jail has stood empty on the eastern edge of downtown while thousands of inmates a month are released from jail after serving only about one-fourth of their sentences.

Sjoberg criticized sheriff’s officials for failing to find a way sooner to cut the costs of opening the jail amid the county’s continuing budget crisis. “Certainly . . . we think they could have had a much sharper pencil presenting a budget in keeping with Los Angeles County’s overall fiscal condition,” he said.

The audit, the first of its kind of the vast law enforcement agency, was launched as part of the state’s agreement last year to bail out the county during its worst-ever fiscal crisis.

In order to receive $50 million, the county agreed to open its books to state auditors after state lawmakers said they were concerned about how close to bankruptcy the county had come. Auditors said they picked the Sheriff’s Department, which has annual budget of $1.1 billion, as one of their central focuses because of its size and importance.

The biggest potential for waste, the audit found, comes in the use of highly trained, well-paid deputies--making up to $70,000 a year in salary and benefits--to do technical and administrative work that auditors think could be accomplished far more cheaply by civilians.

For instance, there are now 22 sworn officers who work as process servers, earning about $53,400 a year to serve court orders and perform similar tasks that could be easily handled by employees without expensive law enforcement training and county paychecks. The audit found that civilian employees could do this same work for little more than half the cost, saving $565,000 a year.

In all, the audit recommended that 141 positions--from artists to staffers at complaint desks to the person responsible for testing police cars--be switched from sworn to civilian positions, reducing salaries and other costs by more than $4.3 million a year.

The Sheriff’s Department agreed with the recommendations on all but two dozen of these posts, but it voiced strong reservations about far broader changes that the auditor is recommending in the way the vast jail system is staffed.

Counties that are using more civilians have cut costs by up to 20%, the audit found. By taking deputies out of the jails, other advantages may follow, the audit predicted. While Los Angeles deputies now must serve up to six years in the jails waiting for street duty, the use of full-time civilian staffers offers the prospect of better staff morale and lower turnover inside the jails, as well as the opportunity to hire more minorities and female workers. In other counties, fewer inmate complaints have been lodged as a result of such use of civilians, the audit found.

One drawback is that the Sheriff’s Department would have fewer officers to send as backups in the event of a major emergency, such as riots or a disaster, the report noted.

The jails have begun expanding the use of civilians “in a deliberately analytical manner,” particularly in its plans for the upcoming opening of Twin Towers, the department wrote in its response to the audit. But, it added, “to proceed to completely change over the largest county jail system in the United States on a wholesale basis would not only endanger department staff, the public and inmates, but it would be a sure prescription for failure of the concept.”

Sjoberg said he was troubled by the department’s “cavalier” attitude toward such proposals as more use of civilians, saying top officials appeared to dismiss the concept without serious consideration.

“If nothing else, we’re always prodding agencies to rethink what they’re doing,” Sjoberg said. But at the Sheriff’s Department, he said, “We didn’t see that continuing challenge that is always part of the budget process . . . asking why--why are we doing it this way?”

Moreover, “There should be a lot of healthy give-and-take between the sheriff and the Board of Supervisors,” he said. “I do not see that currently in place.”

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, the only board member who could be reached, said she and her fellow supervisors are open to the concept of increased use of civilians, but said other counties have run into serious opposition from deputies’ unions. As for the need for more board oversight, Burke said: “I think I agree with that. We don’t have the kind of information we need to carry on an intelligent discussion on these kinds of issues.”

Sjoberg acknowledged the limited scope of the report, saying his staff of five auditors had only a few months to look at the budget, and that further reviews--such as one to be launched soon by county officials in response to The Times series--could uncover even more areas of potential savings.

In addition, Sjoberg and sources familiar with the investigation said, state auditors met with some initial lack of cooperation from sheriff’s officials in getting the financial information they sought.

The audit was critical of the Sheriff’s Department’s initial stand that $100 million was required to open and run Twin Towers.

At first, Block threatened that he would have to pull almost 400 deputies off the streets in the county’s unincorporated areas if he was forced find money in his budget to help open the towers. Several months later he proposed a scaled-back plan that called for transferring almost 2,000 women inmates from the crumbling Sybil Brand Institute into one of the towers, and leasing more than 1,900 other beds throughout the jail system to the state and federal governments to earn an estimated $37 million a year.

Sjoberg said Block’s initial spending plan “was gold-plated” and that sheriff’s officials could have come up with the revised plan earlier.

The audit concluded that even the new plan has room for savings. For instance, it said, the department plans to use too many employees from Sybil Brand at Twin Towers.

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Audit Findings

An auditor’s review of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department fiscal affairs suggested up to $44 million in potential savings, including:

* JAILS: Many highly paid deputies could be replaced by civilians at jails, saving up to $33.6 million a year.

* STAFFING: Instead of deputies, civilians could do technical work such as automotive testing and record-keeping.

* BAKERY: The jails could save up to $1.2 million a year by closing an inmate-run bakery and buying their baked goods from private vendors.