Budgets for Public Safety Still Growing

Despite newly instituted controls on spending, Ventura County’s public safety budgets will continue to grow in the coming fiscal year, budget projections released Tuesday show.

Operating budgets for the sheriff, district attorney, public defender, probation agency and other public safety departments are expected to increase 9.7% in the 2005-06 fiscal year, which begins July 1, compared with 7.7% for all other departments, said Chief Deputy Executive Officer Paul Derse.

That would seem to contradict the goal of a court settlement over public safety budgets approved in April by the Board of Supervisors. The pact -- signed by the supervisors, Sheriff Bob Brooks and Dist. Atty. Gregory Totten -- was cast as a way to keep a lid on public safety spending, which saw annual double-digit increases in the late 1990s.

But Derse assured supervisors at their Tuesday board meeting that the hike in funding was temporary. Under the court agreement, public safety departments can draw from so-called bridge financing for two years to soften the impact of reduced budgets, he said.

After fiscal year 2006-07, they will get roughly the same increases allotted to other departments, he said.

After the meeting, Brooks said that without the bridge financing from the general fund he would not be able to reopen the shuttered East County jail.

He said the financing will allow him to hire eight deputies and a supervisor instead of laying off 100 people. He said he expects to reopen the jail half-time by September and full-time by spring.

The cost of salaries, pensions and workers’ compensation insurance are still outstripping available funding, the sheriff added, but the extra dollars will allow him to maintain the current force.

“We’re very pleased to not have to face layoffs,” Brooks said. “I don’t know how we would have done it without the bridge financing.”

Overall, budget managers are projecting a $1.4-billion budget, an increase of 7.7% over the current year. Growth in the general fund, the pot of money over which supervisors have the most discretion, is significantly lower, at 4.8%. The general fund pays for roads, libraries, elections, law enforcement and other county services.

Compared with recent years, the county’s financial picture has is rosy. No layoffs are anticipated in the workforce of 7,500 and financial reserves are continuing to grow.

While still short of their goal of setting aside 15% of revenue for emergencies, supervisors have nearly reached the 10% mark.

The board has achieved this even though the state plans to borrow $7 million in property taxes that would normally flow to county accounts, Derse said.

Revenue growth is being driven largely by higher-than-expected property taxes and generally strong sales taxes, Derse said.

Compared with last year, when 250 people were laid off, this year’s budget is like a ray of sunshine, Supervisor Judy Mikels said.

“Last year was such a disaster,” she said. “But our managers did a yeoman’s job in absorbing the cuts and continuing to provide services with fewer people.”