San Benito County Sheriff Darren Thompson presented the department’s 2011 annual report at the May 8 county supervisors meeting in an attempt to stave off the elimination of 11 positions from his jurisdiction. The supervisors are set to discuss the layoffs at a future meeting.
“The annual report overview is a low-budget report we put together to demonstrate and communicate what we do and the reason we do them,” Thompson said at the meeting.
His PowerPoint presentation included statistics from the annual report on the types of services the sheriff’s department offers and the number of tasks they performed for the year. He explained that the San Benito sheriff’s department engages in many services that are not mandatory under the California constitution, but some of the services they provide are state-mandated.
The state-mandated services include civil process and court document services; maintain California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System; court security and bailiff services; coroner duties; corrections – jail services and inmate transportation; maintain Office of Emergency Service Operations and search and rescue.
The additional services provided in San Benito County for unincorporated areas as well as the cities of Hollister and San Juan include K-9 support; narcotic task force coordination (UNET); patrol and law enforcement in unincorporated areas and contract cities; radio infrastructure for the public safety communications system and school resource officers.
“We’ve seen a 300 percent increase in civil processes since the closure of the Marshal’s office,” Thompson said.
Civil processes include court summons, criminal subpoenas, evictions, court orders and temporary restraining orders. Thompson said his deputies completed 1,579 processes in 2011, though most take an average of three attempts.
The process services brought in only $35,000 last year since court processes are not charged a fee. Thompson said the majority of the processes are in the Hollister area, which takes deputies out of their assigned patrol areas in the rural communities.
Thompson said one of the mandated duties is that of coroner, though the county contracts with a medical examiner in Monterey to perform autopsies. He said in 2011, there were 60 death investigations. The 37 that required autopsies cost the county $74,000.
Every autopsy is $2,000, but other costs associated with the mandated service include the cost to transport a body to and from Monterey County.
One of the largest expenses to come out of the sheriff’s department is jail operations. Thompson said the county had 2,562 bookings in 2011, down from the last two years. He also said parolees are spending less time in jail when they are rearrested because of overcrowding. Inmates are also increasing being released early due to overcrowding.
“The grand jury noted concerns about the staffing,” Thompson said.
From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m, there is one supervisor and four corrections deputies at the jail. From 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., there is one less correction deputy on duty. One of Thompson concerns is that a deputy has to transport up to 12 inmates at a time in a van from the jail to the courthouse, with no backup.
“We have 15 inmates on trial for or recently convicted of murder,” Thompson said.
The inmate to deputy ration is 40 to 1.
Thompson said that San Benito County has a third of the sworn officers (not including correctional staff) as other counties of similar size and population, such as Tulomne, which had 62. In 2008-09, San Benito had 36 sworn deputies. In 2011, there were 27.
Thompson said only 19 deputies are paid out of the general fund because the department receives state or special grant funding for others, such as those involved with the Unified Narcotics Enforcement Team.
He said that he understands that San Benito County only gets 11 cents for every dollar of property tax money collected from the state, and that 4.5 cents of that money goes to the sheriff’s department. He said of their share, 2.5 cents goes to jail so his department is left with 2 cents on the dollar for all the other services they provide.
“We face significant crimes and have a large geographic location,” Thompson said.
One of the key non-mandated service the sheriff’s deputies provide is response to emergency calls and patrol. In 2011, deputies went out on 12,368 calls from around the county. They also initiated 980 events, such as when they pull someone over. Thompson said the response time is nine minutes and 51 seconds for priority one calls, due to the number of deputies available and the fact that many of them are doing civil processes in areas that are not their designated patrol area.
