Public Safety Stance on Budget Defies Logic, Ignores Facts

Ventura County is facing a projected budget deficit of $12.4 million for the coming fiscal year. Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford has directed all county department heads to come up with cuts that will enable the county to balance its budget. Sheriff Bob Brooks and Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury argue that public safety agencies should be excused from this discipline and that these necessary cuts should come entirely out of the budgets of other departments.

This egregiously irresponsible position taken by these two otherwise dedicated public servants is made all the more disappointing by the fact that they support it with specious and misleading arguments.

They remind us that under Proposition 172 “public safety is the first responsibility of local government.” Well, of course it is--but it is not the only responsibility.

In the current budget debates, “public safety” is usually meant to refer only to services provided by the four agencies (sheriff, district attorney, public defender and probation) to which all Proposition 172 funds have been allocated to date. But the overall county budget includes an array of other services without which these four public safety agencies could not function.

The assessor, tax collector and auditor / controller collect and account for the funds used for public safety, among other things. Without the elections division, we could not elect the sheriff or district attorney or anybody else. Trial court funding in the budget of the chief administrative office helps provide courts needed by the district attorney to prosecute criminals, in addition to civil law courts. The sheriff’s patrol vehicles, just like personal and commercial vehicles, rely on roads built and maintained by the public works agency.

Moreover, the term “public safety,” as used in Proposition 172, includes many services provided by county agencies other than the four that have so far monopolized these funds.

Out of 58 counties in California, only Ventura has restricted use of Proposition 172 funds to these four agencies. Other county agencies provide such public safety services as ensuring that hazardous materials and wastes are handled and disposed of safely, enforcing public health standards in restaurants, protecting water supplies from contamination, controlling contagious diseases, assuring that new buildings meet safety standards, protecting neglected or abused children, among others.

The county also provides many services that, although not directly related to public safety, are a necessary element of civilized society--for example, libraries and medical care for the poor. The list goes on.

The county chief administrative officer’s effort to keep this complex, interconnected web of services intact through the current budget crisis is not helped by the political grandstanding of a few powerful department heads intent upon maintaining their own empires regardless of damage to other vital agencies.

When Proposition 172 was before the voters in 1993, the sheriff and district attorney argued that it was needed to avoid a reduction in public safety services. Since 1993, during a period of extraordinarily low inflation, the sheriff’s budget has increased by 73% and the district attorney’s by 56%.

These figures indicate either that the sheriff and district attorney have greatly increased their services over pre-Proposition 172 levels or that they have committed monumental waste.

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The district attorney reminds us that Ventura County’s crime rate has declined. Indeed it has--but the crime rate has also declined throughout the nation, including places that have not had any significant increases in police presence or criminal prosecutions.

The district attorney also reminds us that Ventura County boasts the nation’s two safest cities and has the lowest crime rate of “metropolitan” counties in the state. But these two cities and the county were among the safest before the huge increases in his budget.

If, as the district attorney implies, a rapidly declining crime rate in an already safe county is an argument for increasing public safety budgets, what would he argue if crime were increasing? Interim Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford is asking the sheriff and district attorney to accept cuts of only 2.6% and 2.9% respectively, still leaving their budgets far above 1993 levels. This would not lead to a collapse of law and order; Ventura County would surely remain the safest “metropolitan” county in the state.

In a recent article on this Ventura County Perspective page, Sheriff Bob Brooks stated, “The department has not received one additional general fund dollar for program expansion in 10 years” and that his “net percentage share of the general fund has decreased from 69% to 48%.” This is misleading wordplay at best. The sheriff’s annual general fund budget has increased by 73.3% ($57.5 million) just since 1993 and his program has expanded. (If the program had not expanded, the public might well ask what happened to the money.)

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When a county agency recovers only part of its costs through revenue specifically restricted to its use (such as funds given to the county by the state to pay for welfare services, and Proposition 172 funds to pay for public safety) or user fees (such as building permit fees, or contract payments by the cities for sheriff’s services), the costs that are not recovered are called “net county costs” and must be paid out of unrestricted county tax revenues. When the budget is out of balance because those tax revenues are insufficient to cover net county costs, it cannot be balanced by cutting such things as welfare services that are either mandated or fully funded by the state. It can be balanced only by cutting discretionary activities that have a net county cost.

All Proposition 172 funds are subtracted from the four public safety agencies’ budgets when computing their net county costs. Even so, their net county costs have ballooned while the net county costs of all other county agencies combined, which receive no Proposition 172 funds, have shriveled.

In 1993-’94, the four public safety agencies accounted for 55.7% of net county cost to the general fund and the entire rest of the county government for only 44.3%. In 1999-2000, the four public safety agencies were responsible for 69.5% of net county cost and all other agencies’ combined share had dropped to a mere 30.5%. In dollars, public safety’s net county costs went from $81.8 million to $100.5 million, an increase of 22.8%. The net county cost of all other county agencies combined went from $65.2 million to $44.2 million, a decrease of 32.2%.

The burden of making up for the state’s 1993 local property tax grab has fallen almost exclusively on these other agencies, whose ability to absorb further cuts is steadily decreasing as they continue to reduce their net county costs. Conversely, the four public safety agencies’ ability to absorb budget cuts has increased along with their net county costs.

As the sheriff pointed out, the issue is not fairness. The issue is practical necessity. If the four public safety agencies do not help reduce the projected $12.4 million deficit, all other county general fund agencies will have to reduce their combined net county costs by 28%. This 28% reduction, on top of the 32.3% already accomplished by these other agencies since 1993, is simply not possible without a drastic degradation of vital county services that would eventually have severe negative impacts on the four public safety agencies as well.

The ultimate losers would be the residents and taxpayers of Ventura County.