Into supes consider options to reduce deficit

Supervisor ask County departments to help bring General Fund deficit down to $3 million.

In their continuing struggle to balance Inyo County’s $6 million-plus structural deficit and reduce the General Fund structural deficit to $3 million, the Inyo County Board of Supervisors met with the Sheriff’s and District Attorney’s Office, Probation Department and Health & Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday.

These four departments represent 75 percent of the County budget, according to CAO Kevin Carunchio.

Public safety, however, counts for over 40 percent of GF Budget—over $20 million—while Public Assistance and Health counts for over 30 percent of, or over $14 million.

Yet Carunchio explained to the Board that, after almost a decade of cuts, not much more can be done in reducing department budgets than what has already been done.

Smaller departments such as the County Assessor, Tax Collector-Treasurer, County Counsel, Coroner, Agricultural Commissioner, Library, Museums, Parks and Recreation, and Public Administrator-Public Guardian proved difficult targets for reductions at last week’s meeting simply because little can be done other than make a full-time position into a part-time position, cut a position entirely, or share staff with another department.

While there are far more options for the larger departments, many of those options are nevertheless painful.

District Attorney Tom Hardy explained to the Board that “the Public Safety System, to use a colorful metaphor used by a previous Public Defender and Inyo District Attorney, is like a python swallowing a pig; all of the system has to work to get the pig to pass all the way through. Any discrepancies in comparable resources mean the system will not work. Input, i.e. arrests, that exceed the D.A. Office’s ability to process means making hard decisions for filings on financial considerations. If substantial reductions in D.A. budget without a reduction in input (arrests), it would mean the possibility of having to not prosecuting lower-level misdemeanors such as drunk in public, disturbing the peace, and so on.

“The fundamental issue is that it is all interconnected in terms of Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney to Probation, Public Defender, all the way through,” Hardy said. “It is difficult to make meaningful cuts that really make sense unless you are looking at the entire system and not just individual departments.”

Hardy did suggest that the D.A. could save $24,000 by closing the Bishop office, cut another $24,000 by eliminating a currently vacant part-time legal secretary, reduce investigator overtime, reduce the travel budget and reduce professional and special services for savings of $89,550.

A more draconian cut would involve laying off the D.A. Investigator currently assigned to the Inyo Narcotics Enforcement Team.

HHS Director Jean Turner has previously spoken to the Board about how her department, the largest in the County, might find savings and continue to help other departments such as Information Services and legal services save by paying for some of their staffing cost.

Current HHS reductions and/or offsets to the County General Fund may total as much as $600,000 for FY 2014-2015. Other possibilities include taking over Public Guardian duties within the department and other Inyo County-Growing Older, Living with Dignity (IC-GOLD) reduction options.

Probation Chief Jeff Thomson told the Board that cuts to his department could include eliminating all overtime on the adult side of Probation, deleting all new office equipment replacement, making substantial cuts in the amount of travel and training budget and the motor pool, and eliminating the Lone Pine office where Probation shares an office with HHS. He recommended the Juvenile Hall staff cut be reduced from eight to four. He added that using the Sheriff’s Kitchen and eliminating the Juvenile Hall Kitchen Program full-time and part-time cooks’ positions could save $103,000.

Thomson did caution the Board that reducing Juvenile Hall staffing would be a safety concern for both the staff and the youth serving time there.

The last presenter, Sheriff Bill Lutze, spoke of mostly dramatic cuts in services to certain areas within the county, including possible layoffs of  six Correctional Officers, backfilling with Deputy Sheriffs, Veteran Services Reduction, eliminating Reserve Deputies, dissolving the OHV Detail and returning the money to the State Department of Parks and Recreation OHV Division. Other service cuts included reductions in Animal Services by eliminating patrols in Death Valley and Southeastern patrols, eliminating APAR positions at the animal shelter, eliminating the Animal Shelter Manager, and limiting hours at the shelter.

In a comment that initially raised a few eyebrows, Sheriff Lutze said that he did not count on Bishop Police or California Highway Patrol to provide backup to his officers. When asked later what he meant, Lutze said, “They are not always available, as they have their own jurisdictions to cover. It is not always reasonable to expect them to travel any great distances to help us, so I simply meant we first count on ourselves to get our jobs done. We have a great relationship with both Bishop and the Highway Patrol.”

If the Board of Supervisors was hoping for good news, aside from the small departments and HHS, they did not hear much that was cause for celebration.

All of which continues to raise questions about the Board’s actions in approving pay raises to employees without a plan to pay for it, and their rejection of giving the public the opportunity to vote on an increase in the Transaction and Use Tax from .05 percent to 1 percent to increase revenue for public services.

The Board will be on a two-week hiatus and return to the budget deliberations at its next meeting. .