Sheriff's woes, electronic voting, pests included in county budget

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Monday, May 21, 2007 12:02 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO -- The Sheriff's Department is still having a hard time finding new deputies. Construction has dried up in the unincorporated areas of the county. A freeze has been lifted for local prosecutors. Electronic voting appears to be here to stay. And destructive insects could have a tougher time getting into San Diego County in the coming year.

Those are just a few of the things that come to light in a close examination of the proposed $4.68 billion budget for 2007-08 that county supervisors examined last week.

County leaders say the spending plan, which is nearly $1 billion larger than it was just five years ago, represents "modest growth" at 7.1 percent larger than last year's $4.37 billion budget and generally holds spending to the status quo.

But the increase is not modest across the board. Some programs and areas will get little in the way of increases, or will receive less money than last year. Other services are getting boosts much larger than 7.1 percent.

The proposed changes have the possibility of touching nearly every one of the 3 million people who live in San Diego County.

The county collects property taxes, runs probation services, coordinates elections, oversees the Sheriff's Department, runs child support services, is in charge of public health and emergency preparedness and provides $1.7 billion for health and social programs for the poor, elderly, children, mentally ill and others.

The budget, which could be approved by supervisors June 19, shows that while most programs are receiving more money, the county is still struggling with trends, including a drop in new-home building, that are slowing the flow of county revenue.

Deputy vacancies still high

County managers and supervisors have long maintained that if they ever received extra revenue, their first priority would be to spend it on public safety. This year's budget proposes to give the Sheriff's Department -- which protects citizens in unincorporated communities and nine cities, including Del Mar, Encinitas, Poway, San Marcos, Solana Beach and Vista -- just a 4.48 percent increase, from roughly $540.4 million to $564.6 million, much smaller than the overall 7.1 percent budget bump.

Undersheriff Bill Gore suggested last week that the county might have made more money available, but that the department was still struggling to fill vacant deputy positions that the cash would fund.

County and sheriff's officials said last week that the department has 2,195 sworn officers on the payroll, but has struggled to fill 273 vacancies, despite a recruiting push.

Gore said law enforcement agencies nationwide are having trouble recruiting officers, and that most of the blame has been leveled on the war in Iraq. Former military troops often become law enforcement candidates, he said, and the military is releasing fewer troops because of the war.

Meanwhile, the proposed county budget plans to give the district attorney's office a 16.6 percent increase, from roughly $118.9 million to $138.68 million. The district attorney's office prosecutes all felony crimes in the county and all misdemeanor offenses countywide except in the city of San Diego and Poway.

The district attorney's office declined to answer questions about the proposed increase and directed questions to other county officials.

Dorothy Thrush, finance director of the county's public safety group, said the big increase was mainly because of negotiated salary increases and to filling 63 prosecutor positions that were frozen in 2003, when the state slashed its funding to the county.

Building collapse

The housing market also has affected the county budget.

Aside from providing law enforcement protection and managing state and federal health and social services, one of the county's prime functions is to manage development and growth in the unincorporated county.

However, the county's new budget shows a proposal to slash money for planning and land use by a whopping 42.6 percent, from roughly $61.66 million to $35.39 million.

That cut is being proposed because the number of applications for building permits has fallen by about 40 percent in the last two years, said Chandra Wallar, general manager of the county's Land Use and Environment Group.

Wallar also said that the reduced budget money is not really a cut in county funding because the building department pays its own way through fees it collects.

However, such a drastic drop in cash would mean more traveling for North County residents who want to file building permits. To cut costs, the county is closing its building permits desk at its San Marcos office.

Meanwhile, the county -- thanks to new funding from the state -- is giving a big boost to its "pest exclusion" program, designed to protect the county's $1.5 billion agricultural industry and residents by keeping crawly, menacing pests such as root weevils, fire ants and Mexican and Mediterranean fruit flies out.

Wallar said the program, which swallowed a $600,000 cut in 2004, is getting a $1.1 million boost in 2007-08.

More electronic voting machines

Also likely to get an increase is the county's fund for voting machines.

Electronic voting machines have stirred some controversy with a minority of election watchers. But the San Diego County registrar of voters office is expecting its budget to jump from $15.53 million to $25.26 million, in part because the county intends to buy more electronic voting machines.

The county agreed to buy 10,200 Diebold TSX "touch screen" voting machines for $31 million in 2003, and used those machines in November's elections.

However, Mikel Haas, director of the county's Community Services Group that oversees the registrar's office, said the county plans to buy an additional 2,000 machines for $5.4 million before February's presidential primary because some voters had to wait in line to cast ballots in November.

"When we used them in November, for the most part you could take a look at rush hour and see we needed more units," he said.

Other snapshots from the county's proposed budget include:

- The county's massive health and human services department is projected to get about a 6 percent, $97.4 million increase, from roughly $1.613 billion to $1.711 billion. However, Terry Hogan, the department's finance director, said that the state had not included a cost-of-living increase in its funding -- which makes up 90 percent of the department's budget -- for the seventh straight year.

- Within the health and human services budget, the county is proposing to increase funding for in-home support services -- which provides in home care to disabled persons -- and services to connect Iraq war veterans with medical, psychological and other help.

Hogan said the in-home support budget would increase by 11.4 percent, from roughly $225.68 million to $251.43 million. However, Hogan said the program was one of the fastest growing in the county because the population is getting older, and that funding was barely keeping pace.

- The county also proposes to cut funding for 50 vacant positions that were once hoped to be refilled in the county's child support services department -- the department that chases "deadbeat" parents and child-support payments for children of divorced couples. The move comes despite the fact that the department was, according to the county, the only large program to actually increase its collections in 2006-07. Hogan said the decision to give up on filling the vacant positions in 2007-08 was because the state had cut its funding for the program.

-- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.