Just three months into the 2014-2015 fiscal year, Santa Barbara County is already expected to be $1.3 million overbudget.
In a quarterly report presented to the county Board of Supervisors on Dec. 2, the county’s budget supervisor, Tom Alvarez, attributed the deviance largely to an unforeseen $2.2 million negative variance in the county Sheriff’s Office budget and a $279,000 loss in general revenue, which are partially offset by several county departments being under budget.
“Most of our departments—it’s actually 67 out of 69—are on track or above target,” Alvarez told supervisors during the presentation.
Alvarez also presented a fiscal outlook report to supervisors, during which he said that the county’s general revenue is expected to increase due to additional property taxes and could balance out the general fund over the long haul and potentially the remainder of the current fiscal year.
Property taxes were up 4.3 percent in the 2013-2014 fiscal year and 5 percent for the 2014-2015 fiscal year, and are expected to grow 4 to 7 percent more in the coming years, he said.
As part of the fiscal outlook presentation, the discussion eventually circled back around to the rise in costs for the Sheriff’s Office, which County Sheriff Bill Brown attributes to the cost of training new hires and overtime pay.
The department is still trying to make up for budget cuts that caused staffing reductions during the recession. He told supervisors that the department still has 64 less personnel than it did in 2007.
“We’re down to a minimum sort of bare bones staffing level,” Brown said during the meeting. “We’re still significantly lower than where I think we need to be.”
He added that once all the vacancies are filled, the cost of overtime should go down because the department will have a cushion of personnel to pull from when people have to call in sick or go on vacation.
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said it seems like the department has a hard time getting a handle on projecting how many people will be retiring and how many people will need to be hired.
“We approved a budget, and it seems like three months later, it’s all blown up,” Lavagnino said.
Brown responded by saying the department had indicated there would be a need for more hires during the budget hearings earlier this year.
“Finding and hiring additional people comes with additional cost,” Brown said.
This article appears in Dec 4-11, 2014.
