After voting to save 12 jobs from a planned layoff in his role
as a Hollister city councilman, longtime Marshal Robert Scattini is
now facing his own career’s peril.
After voting to save 12 jobs from a planned layoff in his role as a Hollister city councilman, longtime Marshal Robert Scattini is now facing his own career’s peril.
The possibility, caused by budget cutbacks, has left diverging views between the two officials most affected by the change. They are Scattini and his counterpart, San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill, who for years has advocated consolidation of the Marshal’s Office into his department.
With 17 years on the job, Scattini believes eliminating his department would be an injustice to locals who rely on his hands-on approach to solving their court-related problems. And he said it wouldn’t save a nickel. Scattini’s budget is offset by state funding and he receives no benefits.
But Hill thinks the change is a long time coming, and he believes a transition would be smooth. He noted most other counties have closed their marshal’s offices in recent years. Though he wasn’t sure what financial savings, if any, could be gained, he said.
“If the board chooses to roll the Marshal’s Office into my operation, we could do that with ease,” Hill said. “There wouldn’t even be a blip on our radar screen.”
Scattini has another idea for the sheriff.
“What I’d like to do is take over the sheriff’s office. And I’d make it a smooth transition into the Marshal’s Office,” said Scattini, previously the county sheriff in the 1980s.
But when marshal’s offices were more common across the state, they were meant to enforce municipal courts. Municipal courts, though, have become obsolete. And locally, it merged with the Superior Court about four years ago.
Hill said keeping the local operation open muddies organization of court security. And Hill said he takes responsibility for any problems that arise.
“In essence, the current marshal in San Benito County under the law doesn’t have any responsibility. It all falls on me,” Hill said, adding any liability created by a marshal’s deputy or Scattini would fall into his lap.
The Marshal’s Office executes the county’s court orders, such as serving eviction notices to tenants, subpoenas to witnesses and lawsuits to defendants. The marshal also oversees court security and provides a bailiff for the bottom floor of the courthouse. Sheriff’s deputies secure the top floor’s court proceedings.
The board appointed Scattini as constable in 1987. He subsequently won elections in 1992, 1998 and 2004. The position’s title changed from constable to marshal in 1994 with a structural change in the courts.
The San Benito County Marshal’s Office is one of a few left in California. Scattini acknowledged the board likely would close the local office once his term expires. But he’s not ready to go yet, he said.
Closing the office was one of several recommendations made by a Board of Supervisors budget subcommittee. The county has a multi-million dollar shortfall with state takeaways and deflating revenues, creating the most severe gap in recent history. The board plans to approve a final budget in early August.
Supervisors Pat Loe and Richard Scagliotti sat on that subcommittee, but Loe declined to comment and Scagliotti hung up his cell phone when reached.
Other suggestions on their list of potential cuts included cutting services to programs not required by the state such as veterans services, 4-H, parks and fire services. The county also has pondered a half-cent sales tax, but is consulting with Hollister and San Juan Bautista officials because those cities would be affected, too.
Scattini, though, pointed out that his office’s budget is meager because he generates most of the income from serving court orders and the state funds his only full-time deputy’s pay.
His budget in 2003-04 was $133,000. Though Scattini said it’s even less. The state refunds $8 to the county for every wage garnishment, and the county gets $350 a month during tax season when Scattini escorts accounting agents to the bank, he said.
Hill said a consolidation would require hiring one additional sheriff’s deputy and maybe a clerical position, he said. County Administrative Officer Dan Vrtis could not be reached on the matter Friday.
Still, Hill called a consolidation of the Marshal’s Office, “good business sense on the part of the board.”
Scattini pointed out that he works seven days a week and has never taken a vacation on the job. Plus, the public wants him in office, he said, noting his wide margin of victory in the March election; he won with 59 percent of the vote against two opponents.
He thinks the county should wait until the new board takes office in January to make a decision.
“You put this office up to a vote, I guarantee you it would be like Measure G,” he said.
