Santa Barbara County is working its way through a series of performance reviews designed to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of county departments. 

Efficient. Effective. They sound great on paper. But what do they actually mean? 

Cost-savings? Trim departments so they can handle more services with fewer people? 

Nope!

According to county CEO Mona Miyasato, the performance reviews are neither financial audits nor budget cutting exercises. However, she added, if the recommendations of the reviews get implemented, it should result in some cost saving measures. 

Somebody help me. I already don’t care. But I suffered through a February presentation to the county Board of Supervisors just so I could help you care. See? I do things for people. 

On Feb. 9, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office was up! My favorite public safety department to scrutinize! The review was 150 pages, but what stuck out to me included adopting demand-driven staffing, data-driven decision making, and better overtime tracking. 

Sheriff Bill Brown responded by saying his department was in “agreement with the vast majority” of the recommendations, but they disagreed with “some” of them, started implementing “some” of them, and had plans to implement “some” of them. 

Umm. Could he be more specific? Well, his staff got super specific. But unless you’d read the whole report and knew what recommendation 1.1 and 1.2 were or 5.3 was, it was pretty hard to follow. Public meeting? More like a coded meeting. 

And the end result: This whole implementation of recommendations to be more efficient and more effective is going to take some time and cost some more money. OK! Great! More taxpayer dollars on law enforcement! Isn’t that just exactly what the community at large is asking for? Negative. 

On April 12, public safety departments, including the Sheriff’s Office, presented their budgets for the 2021-22 fiscal year. The Sheriff’s Office budget increased by more than the five other departments combined. Even the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, which is dealing with unprecedented wildfire seasons and increased risks, only asked for a $5 million increase, from $89 million to $94 million. Brown wants $177 million in 2021-22—$12 million more.

As community activists pointed out during the budget workshops: that performance review found that Brown’s Sheriff’s Office spends $26.7 million more and has 165 full-time staff equivalents more than comparable counties. 

“It seems that over time, our sheriff’s budget has growth disproportionate to what most counties have that are comparable,” CLUE Santa Barbara Criminal Justice Workgroup member Laurence Severance said at the meeting.

Funny, you say “over time” Laurence, because overtime seems to be an issue for the Sheriff’s Office, which can’t seem to figure out that less work should mean fewer people and less overtime. 

That performance review found that from 2017 to 2019, calls for law enforcement service fell by 6 percent, while the number of full-time law enforcement staff grew by 3 percent. It also found that overtime increased by 30 percent from 2017 to 2019, excluding the peak in 2018 caused by response to the Montecito debris flow. 

For the last several fiscal years, the Sheriff’s Office has spent between $6 million and $10 million on overtime per year. Over time, it seems like Brown’s department is getting less efficient and effective. Not more.

The Canary needs overtime pay. Send help to [email protected].

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