After spending more than $115,000 on a special prosecutor in the
Los Valientes civil rights case, San Benito County District
Attorney John Sarsfield doesn’t have enough money left in his
supply budget to pay for the basics like keeping the lights on in
his office.
Hollister – After spending more than $115,000 on a special prosecutor in the Los Valientes civil rights case, San Benito County District Attorney John Sarsfield doesn’t have enough money left in his supply budget to pay for the basics like keeping the lights on in his office.
Sarsfield said members of the county board of supervisors are retaliating against him for his prosecution of the anonymous group Los Valientes, which has sued the county alleging corruption, and he is threatening to sue the county if it doesn’t give him additional funding to pay the bills.
“We’re not talking anymore, the county’s word means nothing to me,” Sarsfield said. “They are trying to shut down the district attorney’s office for one reason: So we can’t prosecute of the Los Valientes.”
When contacted by the Free Lance, supervisors were not aware of the budget issues. And, Supervisor Reb Monaco denied the accusation that the board stopped paying the district attorney’s bills in order to stifle the Los Valientes litigation. Monaco also said he didn’t understand why Sarsfield would sue the county before requesting additional money for his budget.
“It’s shocking. We haven’t even had a chance to talk,” Monaco said. “Having the item agendized seems like the proper precursor to filing a lawsuit.”
The San Benito County Auditor’s office stopped paying Sarsfield’s supply bills, such as telephone and electricity, Monday after realizing that he had gone $71,000 over his $140,000 budget for services and supplies, said Finance Director Joe Paul Gonzales. He exceeded his budget by paying Nancy Battel $115,000 over 10 months to prosecute a series of cases involving Los Valientes, Sarsfield said.
Gonzales said that he could not continue to write checks for the district attorney’s office without approval from supervisors. And, Gonzales said most of the outside attorney bills that came in last week had to be sent back to the district attorney’s office because he did not have the authority to pay them.
Sarsfield said that he would sue the county if he did not get the money needed to continue operating and paying office bills by 2pm today.
“I will do what I have to do to protect the people of San Benito County,” he said. “If we have to sue the county to pay our bills so we can prosecute drunk drivers, we will.”
County officials said that Sarsfield should be responsible for his own budget and that if he needs more money he should request to put the item on the board’s agenda for budget augmentation before suing the county. Sarsfield said he believes the board – with the exception of Supervisor Pat Loe – is purposely trying to cut off his funding in order to prevent him from continuing his prosecution of the Los Valientes.
“They’ve completely shut us down. Pretty soon our phones will get shut down and our lights will go off,” Sarsfield said Monday after learning about the budget problem from a creditor. “In my mind we’re out of business. All we can do right now is (prosecute) DUIs and violent crimes.”
Sarsfield said several utility bills were overdue, but did not know if or when the office would lose electricity or telephone service.
County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson said Sarsfield had not requested additional money from the board or asked the board to approve a transfer from one section of the budget to another. Thompson said she was not treating the problem as an emergency and that Sarsfield could ask for the issue to be put on the board’s agenda for the next meeting on March 28.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a budget problem like this,” Thompson said.
Gonzales said the district attorney’s office could transfer money out of salaries and into supplies in order to get back on track, but said even that move wouldn’t solve all Sarsfield’s financial woes.
“He has a limited salaries budget,” Gonzales said. “If he used that, he might not have enough money to pay his employees.”
Supervisor Anthony Botelho said he was committed to making sure the district attorney’s office had enough money to continue operating, but was concerned about the budget shortfall.
“I’m not surprised, but I’ve got a lot of questions,” Botelho said Monday. “Mr. Sarsfield owes an explanation of his expenditures to the tax payers.”
Botelho said any additional budget request from Sarsfield would be looked at closely before getting approval in order to make sure he wasn’t wasting money. Botelho said he would treat any other department head’s request for additional money the same way.
Budgets, Sarsfield said, are simply estimates. He blames the shortfall on the fact that his office has had to handle 2,500 cases this year instead of the average 1,500 cases. He said it was impossible to predicate how many cases he would have to handle at the beginning of the year when budgets are due. Sarsfield knew he would go over budget and said he had warned the board months ago.
Brett Rowland covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or
br******@fr***********.com
.
