Wealthy Calif. county goes after sheriff's overtime |
Law enforcement agencies running up massive overtime tabs in the communities they serve is far from a new story in California. But one governing body is now taking aggressive measures to combat it.
In Santa Barbara County, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last week to add increased oversight to the sheriff’s budget, including mandatory monthly reporting on overtime allocations.
The step is not only seemingly overdue but also necessary for the county to attempt to remain fiscally solvent. The sheriff’s office paid out $21 million in overtime last year — with the top overtime earner making $170,000 in overtime on top of a base salary that was $103,000, according a recent report in the Santa Barbara Independent on the county’s audit.
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During last week’s meeting, members of the sheriff’s office attempted to account for the overtime numbers, which have continued to surge this year. Outraged members of the community, one after the next, testified that they are fed up with the ongoing spending.
Good intentions to keep the sheriff’s office in line with the budget it’s allocated notwithstanding, it was officials from the sheriff’s office itself who presented their reporting on the overtime overages.
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In some cases, they attempted to justify how they continue to run over budget. A recent audit “suggests that employees are taking advantage of the contract their unions negotiated to maximize the number of hours qualifying for overtime, by substituting paid sick or vacation leave hours for regular work hours and then making up the rest of their work week with hours that can be billed at time-and-a-half overtime rates,” the Independent reported.
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“It’s a very common practice,” Santa Barbara Sheriff Bill Brown told supervisors of such circumstances, before attempting to give them an example of how it happens: “Let’s suppose we have a custody deputy that’s working, and he has the flu,” he explained. “And he is in bed and down with the flu for a week. So in week one of his pay period, he stays home, and he uses 40 hours of his sick leave that he is given. He gets better, he comes back to work on week two, and he’s going to work the other 40 hours. If he’s working those 40 hours and on one or two of his shifts, they are short on the incoming shift and he holds over and works for, say, four hours on each shift, he would’ve accrued another eight hours. That would be paid as overtime because, again, it’s permitted.”
FILE: A view of the Santa Ynez Mountains from downtown Santa Barbara, Calif.
But Brown’s hypothetical simply didn’t resonate with Supervisor Laura Capps, especially to justify the overages the office has run up thus far this current budget cycle. The county estimates the sheriff’s office is already around $6 million over budget and is projected to end up about $9 million over budget by the end of its fiscal year in June.
The matter is a pressing one, as it was revealed in late December that the county is facing a budgetary shortfall of $66 million over the next half decade.
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“OK, but that sounds like a fairly unusual circumstance,” Capps said in reply to the hypothetical explanation of how rampant overtime can occur. She was curious how these circumstances could result in an overtime overage of $6 million thus far this year.
“Wouldn’t that set off a bunch of flags in your budget system, that if someone’s getting paid close to triple their base salary, and I know that the triple the base salary is an extreme example, but a lot of people, a lot of those who work for you, Sheriff Brown, are getting more money in overtime than they are in their base salary, and that is, to me, just not a good system,” she continued. “And so, something’s off.”
Brown responded that there are multiple lenses one can look through to view overtime, including that some deputies are simply trying to make more money. “The reality is it’s an employee who is willing to work overtime, who is stepping up to the plate to work overtime when it is needed the most,” Brown said. “And oftentimes, it’s done because they have a goal in mind, a financial goal they want to achieve or whatever.”
Brown also acknowledged the overtime problem is rampant but not with just his office. “This is common throughout government — throughout the state and throughout the country,” he said.
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“There are always people who are willing to step up and work a lot of overtime, and that in and of itself, I don’t believe we should demonize them for that,” he added.
FILE: Stearns Wharf looking toward State Street and downtown is viewed in this aerial photo on Feb. 23, 2018, in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Santa Barbara County residents who spoke at the meeting were also in favor of auditing and restricting the sheriff’s office’s overtime allowances. “Today, we have an opportunity to reimagine how our tax dollars are best spent to benefit the people who actually pay those taxes,” a speaker named Anna Garcia said. “The sheriff’s department under Bill Brown keeps demanding more money while it’s under investigation for chronic budget overruns and fraudulent overtime claims.”
County Supervisor Bob Nelson said he supported a closer look at the sheriff’s overtime use but also encouraged a notion that all county departments potentially receive similar treatment. “A lot of my ag constituents rely heavily on the sheriff’s department and the work of our patrol to protect their employees and their resources,” he said. “I know it’s an important piece of the puzzle of public safety, and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
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County supervisors, minus Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, who excused himself from the meeting early for a family matter, decided unanimously in favor of the monthly audits and directed staff to report back to them about potentially hiring an independent inspector general to oversee the sheriff’s office, along with other departments, regarding their allocations of overtime. “Establishing an inspector general is about accountability, transparency and fiscal responsibility,” Supervisor Joan Hartmann said of potentially seeking independent oversight. “And it ensures that sheriff’s operations are effective there and financially sustainable, protecting county resources today and into the future.”
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