Sheriff will drop overtime as jail staffing tool

Sheriff Lee Baca has decided to stop using overtime to increase staffing in the Los Angeles County jail system, a move that a deputies union warns could put guards, inmates and civilians at risk.

Baca said he used overtime over the last year to add the equivalent of about 300 deputies and nonsworn custody assistants to his jail staff -- a response to inmate violence and a federal judge’s concerns about conditions in the overcrowded Men’s Central Jail.

Though the deployment of jailers on overtime has helped reduce violence and opened up more bed space in the jails, the Sheriff’s Department can’t afford to keep paying the cost, Baca said. The sheriff estimated that the department would have to pay $30 million per year if the staffing levels were maintained.

“I don’t have the funds to carry this out,” Baca said. “I cannot afford these stopgap measures.”

Union officials say the change will cause problems.

“It’s not just riots that we’re worried about, it’s the civilians and other people working in the jails,” said Floyd Hayhurst, vice president of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. “It’s not a matter of if somebody is going to get hurt, it’s when somebody is going to get hurt.

“What’s more important, a few bucks or saving lives?” Hayhurst said.

Since 2000, 14 inmates have been slain in Los Angeles County jails, the largest local jail system in the nation. One year ago, a series of race-related riots at several Los Angeles County facilities left two inmates dead and dozens injured.

Hayhurst said several deputies assigned to the jails have called this week to express concern about staffing reductions. One deputy told him that the staffing at his module in Men’s Central Jail had been reduced from three deputies to one.

“It makes it extremely unsafe,” Hayhurst said.

The union plans to file a grievance requesting that more deputies be assigned to the jails, which have an average daily population of more than 18,000 inmates, Hayhurst said.

Baca acknowledged that reduced staffing would “certainly make it more difficult to manage the inmate population.” He said he did not expect that the reductions would affect his decision earlier this month to start holding inmates for longer portions of their sentences.

Since 2004, the department has released about 200,000 inmates early, many of them after they had served less than 10% of their sentences, because the county lacked the financial resources to hold inmates for their full sentences. This month, Baca said the department would make all male inmates serve at least 50% of their sentences.

As a result of last year’s violence, and criticism from a federal judge who is overseeing a lawsuit about jail conditions, Baca started paying deputies overtime to travel from other assignments to work in the jails. The department also hired 1,000 deputies.

Baca said he had asked the Board of Supervisors to provide additional funding so the department could restore the jail overtime program.

“It’s all a dollar problem. The board is reviewing it. The board understands it’s better for me to be proactive and prevent a federal decree,” Baca said.

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stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com