Fight Brewing Over Law Enforcement Funding

Setting the stage for what promises to be a showdown with the county’s powerful law enforcement agencies, Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford is proposing to overhaul an ordinance earmarking more than $40 million annually for law enforcement.

Sheriff Bob Brooks met with Hufford in a closed-door meeting Monday to discuss his plan, which includes denying county-funded increases for public safety agencies in any year when finances are tight. Brooks said that would be a breach of the public trust and he would fight it.

From the time he was hired as chief administrator in December 1999 to solve the county’s financial problems, Hufford promised to go after the ordinance that helped swell law enforcement budgets by 70%.

Now, in the final month of his tenure, he’s fulfilling his promise.

But Hufford will have to win over more than just Brooks. County Counsel Frank Sieh said any change in the 1995 ordinance will require a vote of the people.

Some supervisors, however, said they just may be ready to make sure that happens. Supervisor Judy Mikels said Hufford’s standing among board members is one reason.

“We are finally ready to listen,” Mikels said. “And I think that has a great deal to do with Harry’s credibility with the board. Building that kind of trust and credibility made the board more willing to listen.”

Hufford is also expected to advocate putting a cap on the annual increases that come from the general fund to cover inflation. The bulk of those increases are driven by salary and benefit hikes, which can jump between 7% and 10% a year. Hufford has been mum about the percentage increase he finds acceptable, but it should be closer to increases in the Consumer Price Index, which average about 2%, officials in his office said.

Brooks said that standard would drive away good new recruits, who would go to law enforcement agencies offering better deals.

And getting the public to agree to withhold increases for public safety will be hard to do, Brooks said. The county, he said, declares financial emergencies too easily--and that makes it look like the boy who cried wolf.

“It’s going to be a very hard sell,” Brooks said. “If it’s a real crisis, then some fixes have to happen. But if it’s an artificial crisis, like the county seems to have every year, well, that’s a different matter.”

Hufford’s idea to withhold inflationary increases during times of budget crisis is based on a plan now used by the state. In 1991, legislators passed a law allowing for a tax cut any time the state’s cash reserve exceeded 4% two years in a row. If the general fund reserves drop below 4%, the tax is reinstated. In January, the state implemented its first tax cut of one-quarter percent.

The chief administrator’s plan was supposed to go before supervisors today. After meeting with the sheriff, however, Hufford decided to hold his report another week to give time to “search for some area of agreement” between himself and the sheriff, whose department gets the largest share of the money.

Brooks said he was happy to hear about the delay, since he is staunchly opposed to the plan Hufford was prepared to offer the board.

Hufford’s proposal “put the board in a showdown position over previous promises they made,” Brooks said.

Hufford isn’t the only one to criticize the ordinance. Former chief administrator David Baker, who quit after less than a week on the job, said the county’s system is unfair, creating growing gaps between law enforcement agencies and other county departments.

The county budget, for example, has grown just 29% over the last six years, compared with public safety’s 70%. Critics say such an entrenched entitlement means that while the county could be tumbling toward financial disaster, officials are powerless to dip into the rich public safety funds for help.

Such was the case last fiscal year when Baker projected a $5-million shortfall for the county.

After Baker’s departure, Hufford was brought in to turn the county’s finances around. Among a series of promises he made to get the bottom line back in the black was an overhaul of public safety funding.

In previous years, supervisors were reluctant to make any changes to that funding because they felt the current arrangement was the will of county residents. Brooks and Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury drove that belief after gathering hundreds of signatures to put the issue on a ballot. Supervisors instead passed the ordinance guaranteeing that the sheriff, district attorney, probation and public defender would get county funding in addition to the money they receive from a half-cent sales tax.

But Supervisor John K. Flynn, who voted in favor of the ordinance, said it has become increasingly clear that the funding arrangement has contributed to inequities and ties the hands of supervisors to make critical financial decisions.

“We really can’t avoid this any longer,” Flynn said. “If we look at county government, we are forming a have and have-not government. And the have-nots are really beginning to suffer.”