Budget Safety for the Public

How much wider can the budgetary chasm between Ventura County’s major law enforcement agencies and all other county departments be allowed to grow before corrective action is taken?

No wider than it already is, according to Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford.

The time to take action is now.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal by Hufford to begin narrowing that fast-widening gap, the result of a county ordinance that guarantees 100% of the local proceeds from 1993’s Proposition 172 “public safety” half-cent sales tax exclusively to agencies engaged in law enforcement: the sheriff’s and probation departments, district attorney’s office and public defender’s office.

This ordinance, known as 4088, also grants the four agencies annual increases from the general fund far in excess of the national rate of inflation--no matter what the rest of the county’s financial picture looks like. Ventura County is the only one in California that imposed such restrictions on Proposition 172 funds; the supervisors did so after a petition drive gathered 55,000 signatures to put the issue on a special-election ballot.

Since Proposition 172 passed, budgets for these agencies have swelled about 70%, while the overall county budget grew only 29%.

Hufford’s plan would peg inflationary hikes to the consumer price index, which is now about 3.75%. It would also empower the board to override the ordinance whenever four supervisors agree that it is necessary.

It’s a fair way to put the decision-making authority over the county budget back where it belongs: in the hands of the supervisors, who are directly accountable to the voters.

It is they who should decide whether the public’s safety faces greater peril from the criminal activity patrolled by these four agencies or from threats left to those that get little help from the Proposition 172 funds. Those include:

* The county Fire Department.

* Police departments in Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Santa Paula, Simi Valley and Ventura.

* Agencies that treat drinking water, dispose of sewage, and monitor hazardous waste and the use of farm chemicals.

* Those that inspect restaurant kitchens and construction sites.

* Medical personnel who control infectious diseases and treat the potentially violent mentally ill.

Under the current setup, these agencies compete for a shrinking share of the county budget while the four law enforcement agencies grow ever wealthier.

More than half of all the county’s discretionary funds, $116.8 million, have been set aside for public safety, Hufford said in a budget briefing.

“This board is making an incredible investment in criminal justice,” he told the board. “And it really handcuffs what you can do. . . . We don’t keep going back there [to public safety budgets] because we don’t like them. We keep going back there because that’s where the money is.”

Hufford said his plan would free up more than $13 million annually to spend on the mentally ill, health care and other needs.

We view Hufford’s proposal as a good approach to a politically painful but financially essential task. The Board of Supervisors should support the plan because there’s a lot more involved in “public safety” than arresting people and locking them up.