Hold the creamer

Inyo County cuts budget where it counts.

While there were not any $600 toilet seats in any County Department budget requests for 2016-2017 fiscal year, there are some interesting items, one of which was brought to The Sheet’s attention by an observer of the County’s Board of Supervisors and budget.

In a discussion of County-run kitchen costs at the jail, approximately $6,000 is spent on flavored coffee creamer and iced coffee in the Sheriff Department. Maybe drinking coffee without creamer would be a good alternative. It certainly is a healthier one, according to health experts. And what’s with the iced coffee?

The actual ingredients for non-dairy coffee creamers are a combination of manufactured products such as corn syrup solids, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and sodium caseinate, along with a handful of other stabilizing, emulsifying and flavoring chemicals. At one time, casein isolates were used in paper products, paint and plastics before being by and large replaced by petroleum products. So the average canister of co-called “creamer” substitutes such as Coffee-Mate does not contain a trace of actual food; well, at least not in the sense most people associate with the word “food.”

In a word, coffee creamer is not a health food— if any kind of food at all— and far from being a natural food product. And iced coffee is often loaded with as many as 500 calories. Do expanded waistlines of peace officers need to be a part of escalating and expanded law enforcement budgets?

So what does the budget item for coffee creamer or iced coffee have to do with the County’s overall budget? It’s barely a blip on the budget radar. It is just a small example of something that is costly, not very healthy, and an expense borne by taxpayer.

The Sheet decided to look into it, along with other observations on the CAO’s budget talk before the County Supervisors.

According to Sheriff Lutze, Inyo County has not served coffee to inmates since 2008, and all the related costs of coffee, iced coffee and condiments such as creamer are used solely for the benefit of employees, fire crews, and search and rescue teams.

Although no one is suggesting that the Sheriff’s Department go without coffee creamer or iced coffee, everyone might be marginally healthier if they did. America, after all, runs on caffeine, and taxpayers want those in law enforcement personnel to be wide awake while enforcing the law and overseeing inmates, but maybe they should consider going “light” on the creamer … and maybe the iced coffee as well?

Flavored creamer and iced coffee aside, revenue and expenses in the CAO’s recommended budget is looking at the usual operating transfers in and out, salary savings, and recommended changes to departments’ projected budgets in which revenues are projected at $50 million against $54 million in expenses, leaving a $4 million structural deficit.

In June, according to Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Carunchio, measures were taken to proactively streamline the budget planning process in the early phase to make it easier for departments to plan and know where they stand going into this upcoming year’s budget situation.

Carunchio then went on to remind the Board of their past budget discussions about “law enforcement costs being out of control” and that “Our law enforcement costs are growing three times faster than the other General Fund departments. The result is that far less money is available for other departments dependent on the General Fund to provide other public services. Greater efforts are needed to bring those law enforcement costs under control.” (“Law enforcement” refers to the Sheriff, County District Attorney, and the Probation Departments.)

The Sheriff’s Department budget has seen a 16.8 percent increase (personnel costs alone have increased over $1 million from just five years ago), while the District Attorney’s Office has seen increases of  17.8 percent and Probation a 17.9 percent increase. “All the other General Fund departments combined increases have only averaged 4 percent,” says Carunchio.

With the County currently looking at approximately a $4 million dollar structural deficit compared to last year’s $3.5 million deficit, Carunchio informed the Board that $1.5 million needs to be cut out of department budget requests.

He explained to the Board that operating transfers are essentially a wash and that savings from salaries and other measures have largely been institutionalized. Motor pool reductions and increased use of leasing with Enterprise will offer some possible savings, but many of the measures used in the past have already been used and offer far less relief going into the future.

“Despite revenues increases in the state indices, they are offset by calculated taxes,” said Carunchio. “Despite an increase in corporate taxes, and the Transient Occupancy Tax, resulting from an extended summer tourism season as a result of the drought, the absence of snow in Mammoth has reduced the number of skiers all along U.S. Hwy. 395 to just a trickle.

“There’s no real growth here,” he concluded. Even so, he said, “The news is pretty good. The $50 million in revenue falls short of the $54 million in expenses, the $3.5 million in fund balance will fill the gap, leaving $500,000 to cut from department budgets.”

At the same time he cautioned the Board that, “With last year’s budget cuts still in place, additional cuts will be significantly closer to the bone.”

During the afternoon County-run kitchen workshop, efforts at reducing costs of providing meals at the jail, juvenile hall, and the senior lunch program were discussed, which included comments on flavored creamer and iced coffee costs, but  mainly focused on the costs of providing meals.

Budget Analyst Danielle Carrington told the Board that in 2013-2014, staffing, utilities, food, and other associated costs saw meals at the jail averaging $8.45. At Juvenile Hall that average jumped to $13.90. Carrington, by way of comparison, shared that the costs in Sutter County facilities are less than $1.50. Foodservices in Sutter County are provided through the private company Aramark, which has thousands of clients in 22 countries. The meals they provide are substantially different from what is currently served to Inyo County Jail inmates.

Sheriff Lutze told the Board that bacon, eggs, and hash brown breakfasts were changed to serving oatmeal this year and that his department has initiated other cost saving measures. Lutze and Probation Chief Jeff Thomson also observed that the County does not buy in bulk at the levels of other counties and that Inyo County does not have the storage to take greater advantage of savings from bulk food purchases. Carrington suggested that the County could stop purchasing condiments and that inmates be given the opportunity to purchase such items through a commissary. She said that a number of counties do just that.

“We are purchasing a lot of condiments for inmates,” says Carrington. She went on to say that, “We need to be more careful about what we are purchasing and why.”