Commissioners OK overtime for jail

In a heated exchange, Sheriff Salazar explains why he has a staff shortage

Bexar County commissioners approved $1.7 million in overtime for the jail Tuesday, and agreed to move forward on a proposed 2020 budget that seeks to provide solutions for family violence and other crime-related issues.

County Commissioner Kevin Wolff and Sheriff Javier Salazar had a heated exchange over a high number of vacancies in the sheriff’s department, which is contributing to overtime costs. County officials said there were 37 openings in law enforcement at the Sheriff’s Office as of Monday, and 141 in jail detention.

Wolff cast the only vote against approval of nearly 50,000 hours of overtime at the jail from July 13 through Sept. 30. He said he refused to support any more excess overtime “until a plan is in place” to reduce costs. State requirements that force the sheriff to hire “law enforcement-qualified” personnel for detention duty have resulted in high turnover at the jail, since many detention officers or potential applicants opt to pursue patrol jobs elsewhere, Wolff said.

“In the 10 years I’ve been here, I’ve not seen it bleed like this,” he said. “It’s a system that eats itself.”

Salazar countered that few of the 1,195 people who applied this year were qualified. He said his force has had to deal with a high number of murder cases this year in a large patrol area with an increasing population, and more violent offenders at the jail, including “188 murderers” and inmates with medical needs who require “hospital runs.”

“It is not due to lack of management. It is not due to a management issue. It’s due to the fact that we’re dealing with a much different demographic” in the jail, Salazar told commissioners. He said his department just started training a class of 23 cadets that could have easily been 50 or more, if the office lowered its hiring standards.

“But the fact is the quality that we would have to lower our standards to, to take in 50, 60, 70 applicants into that class, we’d be having a totally different set of problems come two, five, 10 years down the road when those folks are proving, out in front of everybody in the public … that they are not worthy of serving,” he said.

Pounding his fist on the podium, Salazar said his detention officers are “risking their lives on a daily basis every bit as much as my deputies on the street,” and are keeping the community safer.

“The end result is that we are spending some overtime money, but it’s not being misspent,” he said.

Salazar said he would like a reasonable overtime budget. But

Wolff said the system needs to be fixed first.

“We have an organizational structure that you’re being forced to work with that ensures that you fail, and you will have to keep coming back to us repeatedly, asking us for more money,” Wolff said.

County officials project $8 million will have been spent this year on overtime in the Sheriff’s Office. They have recommended $5 million be budgeted for overtime in fiscal 2020. The proposed budget also includes 10 new positions for patrol deputies; six that were approved last year have yet to be filled but were approved again for the coming year.

On a positive note, officials were hopeful about a proposed $2.2 million recidivism reduction pilot program that seeks to prevent removals by Child Protective Services by providing support services to 350 families upon closure of child-welfare cases. The program, being implemented in coordination with community health leaders and the Texas Department of Family Protective Services, seeks to keep families from cycling back into the child-welfare system.

“It is a studied experiment. We know we’re in the right spot,” David Marquez, executive director of economic and community development, told commissioners.

The spending plan also includes $887,000 to renovate a 10,200-square-foot commercial structure at 15903 University Oak Drive to serve as a North Side substation of the Sheriff’s Office, helping reduce emergency response times and operating costs. Commissioners on Tuesday approved spending nearly $2.5 million for the property from funds programmed this year.

The budget also proposes spending $594,097 for five prosecutors to help reduce a backlog of family violence cases, and $223,457 to fund three positions to accelerate processing of protective order applications.

The budget encompasses nearly $1.8 billion, including $600 million in operating expenditures, $730 million in capital projects, $160 million for debt service, $25 million for contingencies and $267 million in reserves and carry-forward balances.

The county tax rate will remain at its current level of 30.1 cents per $100 valuation. Public hearings on the tax rate are scheduled for Aug. 29 and Sept. 3. Adoption of the budget and tax rate is set for Sept. 10.

Also approved, at the request of the Bexar County Fire Marshal’s Office, was an order restricting outdoor burning through Nov. 19, to prevent brush fires. Household trash and other domestic waste can only legally be burned in devices such as burn barrels with metal wire mesh screens.