The San Benito County Sheriff’s Office has been reorganized to shore up management without adding any additional personnel or increasing the budget.
At the Tuesday San Benito County Board of Supervisors meeting, Sheriff Darren Thompson described his department as a “Jenga” tower that has had so many pieces pulled out it has become unstable after four rounds of cuts. In working within his budget, he approached the supervisors with a request to add two full-time sheriff’s captains while eliminating two full-time sergeants from his roster.
Jacki Credico, a human resources management analyst for the county, presented a job description for the new captain position that included a salary range that would not increase the sheriff’s office budget.
“It’s known to us all in San Benito County that we were hit very hard financially,” Thompson said. “A few years ago we had 96 employees and now we are at 48.”
Credico said she recommended a salary range of $8,600 to $10,981 monthly based on the salary of the elected sheriff as well as salaries of the sergeants. The new position will be part of the law enforcement management group and will not be eligible for overtime pay – the sergeants receive overtime pay.
With the new positions, Thompson said it would make his department stronger without adding more employees to the structure. In his proposed reorganization, he recommended to create four supervisory positions that will report directly to him, including finance, operations commander, administration commander and a corrections commander. Since the elimination of the undersheriff’s position several years ago, Thompson said the he has 10 employees who report directly to him.
“It is chaotic,” he said. “It’s led to great communication inefficiencies – training and accountability is lost.”
He said the change to having three commanders would lead to more efficiency.
“I was on the budget ad-hoc committee and the idea of restricting was a big part of that,” said Supervisor Margie Barrios. “But it is a huge task – you need to think it out and discuss it. This is where we are headed now in all our departments. I will support it.”
Supervisor Robert Rivas referred to the reorganization as a step in the right direction.
“When you look at the budget we have no choice but to become more efficient,” he said. “We need to set the precedence and this is a great example of a plan and model.”
Supervisors unanimously approved the new job description for a sheriff’s captain position and the reorganization proposed by Thompson to create two captain positions while eliminating two sergeant positions. Two of the six existing sergeants are expected to be promoted to the captain’s position.
