Supervisors may seek overtime audit of Sheriff’s Office
Under the watch of Laurie Smith, who portrays herself as a fiscal disciplinarian in her bid for a sixth term this November, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office has dramatically blown its overtime budget for most of the past decade, spending more than double the total amount allocated.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will consider a request by Supervisor Joe Simitian for an in-depth analysis of the sheriff’s overtime budget. Simitian wants the analysis to focus on the fiscal years from 2013 to 2018, when the agency spent about $150 million in overtime against a budget of roughly $60 million — a 150 percent increase — with a majority of those funds going toward county jail deputies and staff.
“There’s nothing wrong per se with overtime. It provides flexibility and offers a lot of folks a chance to supplement their earnings. That’s understandable,” Simitian said. “The question here is one of apparent overuse, and possible misuse or abuse.”
Smith challenged the county audit report and said her agency was not consulted. She attributed the overtime figures to the costs of instituting jail reforms and improving inmates’ conditions.
“As sheriff, I have instituted my strong jail reform plan with the support of county administration and the Board of Supervisors,” she said in a statement. “To implement my plan, we made the decision, in coordina-
tion with County Administration, to begin reforms utilizing overtime until our plan is approved, analyzed, and fully implemented.”
Smith added: “Any conclusions from this report would be a gross misrepresentation of the county’s budget plan for the Sheriff’s Office.”
The conflict shined a harsh light on the sheriff’s pronouncements that she has consistently operated within or under budget during her tenure as the county’s top cop. She repeated the contention as recently as Sept. 12 at a candidate forum and debate.
County Executive Jeff Smith takes issue with that interpretation, saying the sheriff’s claim is only true in that the county is obliged to cover any of its agencies’ budget shortfalls to avoid running afoul of state law that bars municipal governments from running deficits.
“The reason that there’s never been spending technically over budget is because we readjust the budget at least twice a year to allocate for their excess spending,” he said. “We do that in order to also have a balanced budget because we can’t operate on a deficit.”
The county executive added that enforcing budgetary discipline on the sheriff is difficult because her elected status means she cannot legally be compelled by the county administration to rein in her spending.
“If someone working in the county was functioning outside their budget like this, they would get some stern words from me, and would risk losing their job,” he said. “But since she’s an elected official, that can’t happen.”
Simitian noted that a special audit report issued Wednesday showed the Sheriff’s Office experienced a shortfall of $13.2 million and $11.9 million in the 2018 and 2017 fiscal years, respectively. According to the same report, overtime pay accounted for 74.1 percent of the 2018 funding gap, while overtime pay accounted for 28.5 percent of the gap in the previous fiscal year.
“I thought that raised some obvious questions,” Simitian said. “In the last couple of years, what used to be not that great of a problem all of a sudden has popped.”
The special audit, overseen by the Management Audit Division, also suggests an imbalance in how overtime is doled out, with correctional deputies and custody health staff comprising 60 of the 71 Sheriff’s Office employees who earned more than $75,000 in overtime last year.
“These figures raise questions about whether overtime work hours could be distributed more broadly, and the potential for overwork to negatively affect staff performance,” Cheryl Solov, management audit manager, wrote in a memo to the board.
The agency’s top overtime
earner, joining the roughly dozen officers who nearly doubled their base salaries with the additional pay, was corrections Lt. Amy Le, who is also president of the county Correctional Peace Officers’ Association, which endorsed Sheriff Smith for re-election.
Le echoed some of the sheriff’s sentiments, asserting that the disproportionate overtime pay is tied to the new jail reforms, policies and additional training that have required more work from correctional deputies and staff. Much of that work, she said, is focused on increased inmate out-of-cell time, education and therapy programs, along with initiatives to bolster the jail’s responsiveness to mental health and medical issues.
Many of the reforms were adopted in response to the beating death three years ago of mentally ill inmate Michael Tyree, which led to the murder convictions of three jail deputies.
“We feel we have no choice because of jail reform, and we care about what we do,” Le said. “My people are really tired.”
Le said she is waiting for the county to authorize more positions to decrease the jail’s reliance on overtime work.
County Executive Smith disagreed with that assessment, saying the Sheriff’s Office already is authorized to add more deputies.
“They could fill those positions right now,” he said. “The fact they can pay overtime means they can fill the positions.”
Roger Winslow, president of the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, which represents the agency’s patrol and enforcement deputies, blames Sheriff Smith’s management style for any struggles with attracting qualified candidates. His union is opposing her re-election.
“Deputies have been sounding alarms for years about a growing staffing crisis within the department, a crisis that is defined by high vacancy rates, fewer people entering the academy, higher turnover and a massive increase in on-the-job injuries,” Winslow said in a statement. “A reliance on overtime instead of proper staffing of the department is both financially reckless and inherently dangerous.”
The scrutiny comes amid a heated runoff race between Sheriff Smith and former Undersheriff John Hirokawa, marking the incumbent’s first general election since she was first elected in 1998.
Hirokawa said the spending questions evoke the same fiscal concerns that spurred the county to transfer operational control of the county jails from the once-standalone Department of Correction to the Sheriff’s Office eight years ago.
“We’re going to go back again full circle,” he said. “The board did the right thing. They’re ultimately responsible for paying those salaries and that overtime. Since they have to pay, they have the right to ask the question why you’re over budget.”