San Benito County supervisors will again consider a consolidation of safety services, with Interim County Administrative Officer Ray Espinosa requesting proposals from both the sheriff’s department and the Hollister Police Department on what it would cost each agency to provide many of the law enforcement services in the community.
“This item is being brought back to the board after a discussion in the intergovernmental meeting with stakeholders to discuss the possibility of looking at a consolidation of safety services,” Espinosa said.
Supervisor Margie Barrios, who serves on the intergovernmental committee with fellow Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz, said the agencies want to explore consolidation as a way to save money while providing better service to the county and the city “just like with fire.”
County supervisors recently approved a contract with the Hollister Fire Department for fire services, ending decades of service provided by Calfire.
“We’ve done this in the past with a 2011 survey and it didn’t pan out, but we probably went about it the wrong way,” Barrios said.
In 2011, the county hired a consultant to review the possibility of consolidating the police and sheriff’s departments. The consultants’ report recommended against the two agencies joining forces because the firm contended the savings would be just above $300,000 and that it would be a daunting task to transfer all the services to one agency.
“We didn’t bring the stakeholders together to discuss it,” Barrios said, of the previous finding.
Supervisor Anthony Botelho said he questioned entertaining the idea of contracting with the Hollister Police Department for sheriff’s services as Espinosa was suggesting.
“We wanted to try and be fair,” Espinosa said. “It wouldn’t be for all sheriff’s services. There are statutes that say there are some they are required to provide – courts and jail. That is something the police department would not be able to provide. Mostly, it pertains to patrolling services they do in the city.”
Espinosa said he thinks the only way a consolidation would work is if the City of Hollister is willing to contract with the county so the county would provide patrols.
“The other way around, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said, noting that few jurisdictions have county sheriff’s departments contracting with a city for services.
Supervisor Robert Rivas said he would like to see proposals from both agencies. He said when supervisors recently held the fire discussions, they did not get a contract from Calfire that showed what it would cost for Calfire to provide all fire services in the county, including within the city limits.
“We didn’t get the universal answer,” Rivas said.
Barrios said she still wanted to see both proposals.
“There are no models where cities have taken over for counties,” Barrios said. “We’ve heard it is better for counties contracted with cities. We are going to be finding out if that has a lot of merit. Until it does, we have to be open-minded and hear both sides.”
