The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors got an extensive financial status report last week, but the picture was not an entirely pretty one.
According to county fiscal and policy analyst John Jayasinghe, who provided the second-quarter update on the fiscal year that began July 1, most of the county’s 68 departments are doing fine. Three, however, are facing alarming shortfalls.
The Department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services is running a $4.6 million deficit, he said, while the Sheriff’s Department is short $2.2 million.
He projected a $345,000 shortfall at the District Attorney’s Office, which is due to recording fees and salaries and benefits, but the department has sufficient general fund revenues that they could use towards their shortfall.
Sheriff’s Department
As it stands, Jayasinghe said, the Sheriff’s Department is over budget by more than $2 million in salaries and benefits.
However, he added, within salaries and benefits, overtime is actually projected to be $3.5 million over budget, while nonovertime costs are expected to be $1.3 million under budget — offsetting the total to $2.2 million.
As vacancies are filled, Jayasinghe explained, overtime pay among existing staff and regular salaries of new staff are incurred simultaneously during the training periods.
In prior years, he said, vacancies were limited and created salary savings that offset the additional overtime required.
Supervisor Janet Wolf noted that the board first heard about the shortfalls last quarter, and she said she had been surprised by the $2.2 million figure at the Sheriff’s Department.
Supervisor Peter Adam asked Sheriff Bill Brown, who was present at Tuesday’s meeting, when the unfunded costs would stop.
Brown responded that the problem is a short-term one, and within the next year and half, more staff will be available and overtime won’t be as large an issue.
He cautioned, however, that once the North County jail is built, the county must maintain custody levels or it could face similar circumstances.
Brown said much of the current situation is a by-product of the recession, when the department kept open vacancies in the anticipation of possible layoffs. He said layoffs were averted as a result of negotiated concessions.
A large number of Sheriff’s Department retirements during that same timeframe exacerbated the problem, he said.
“It’s very difficult in an organization our size to stay staffed,” said Brown, who added that in the eight years he’s been sheriff, it’s only happened once.
Adam lamented the budget shortfalls, and said the circumstances were similar to when the Sheriff’s Department’s financial report had come before the board after the first quarter.
“It’s like déjà-vu all over again,” he said. “We keep talking about overtime and having to throw more money at it.”
Brown said overtime costs for public safety have been underfunded historically, and that “it’s a challenging situation to try and maintain a trained staff with a lot of different training requirements.”
Five custody deputies were sworn in last week, and he said their addition will help close the gap.
“I don’t anticipate that we’ll have as drastic a problem next year,” Brown added.
Wolf said she had the same concerns as Adam.
“When we have our budget discussions, we expect that our department heads are going to give us as close to the estimate of expected costs as possible,” she said. “This puts us in a very difficult position as we’re moving forward,” she added, noting that remedies would be limited.
“I would strongly urge you to make some additional cuts in your department so that we don’t see this when we come back to budget,” Wolf told Brown.
County CEO Mona Miyasato said her office will be working with the Sheriff’s Department on the numbers.
“We don’t want to be in the position where we’re looking at the same position midyear next year,” she said.
County Budget Director Tom Alvarez said the county is working to develop a more realistic overtime budget for 2015-2016.
“We believe we’re, hopefully, at the tail-end of this phenomenon,” he said.
“A budget is an estimate, it’s not cast in stone,” Brown pointed out, adding that there have been years when millions of dollars have been returned to the county’s general fund.
Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said every department head in the county is held to “different sets of rules.”
“We have to have a stronger, harder number earlier on in the fiscal year,” he said. “We’re going to hold people to the number they came in with.”
Brown will be back before the board March 17, when the supervisors are to receive an update on overtime numbers as well as any money available that could help reduce the deficit.
Department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services
Meanwhile, the Department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services also reported budgetary woes last week. The agency’s mental health services fund is looking at a deficit of $4.6 million, almost 80 percent of which is coming from the cost of inpatient contract beds at its Psychiatric Health Facility, or PHF, officials say.
According to ADMHS staff, the department is seeing a significant increase of patients that are desginated “Incompetent to Stand Trial.”
The county is not paid anything for the time those individuals spend in the PHF, which is located at 315 Camino Del Remedio in Santa Barbara.
One day in the PHF costs about $1,650 per bed, so when a person who cannot stand trial comes into the PHF, the county must foot the bill and while being required by law to provide services.
Santa Barbara is not alone in the increase. Statewide, Alvarez told the supervisors, IST referrals in 2014 were up 26 percent from the year before.
“This a new phenomenon we’re not prepared to deal with, and I’d like to know what our plan is,” Lavagnino said.
The county will be researching why there has been such a large increase in IST designations over the last six months. One theory is that there has been a reduction of “step-down” facilities in the county, according to Miyasato.
Lavagnino said the increase sounded like another unfunded mandate, and encouraged the county’s legislative team to look into the issue.
ADMHS Director Alice Gleghorn said there is no single solution to the challenge, but she observed that a reduction in things like supportive housing beds has increased pressure on the PHF unit.
Proposition 47, which was passed by voters last fall and requires misdemeanor sentences instead of felonies for certain drug and property offenses, also could be having an effect.
The county is working on opening a crisis stabilization unit on the South Coast this summer. A second facility in the North County could take another year or 18 months to open.
When those services are up and running, Gleghorn said she’s hopeful that individuals will be diverted from the PHF.
“The fact is we are lowering the amount of days for people we would normally refer to the PHF,” Wolf said. “They’re being taken for ISTs.”
As a result, more patients are sent to other PHFs in Ventura County.
PHF Medical Director Leslie Lundt said that if a doubt arises about the mental capacity of an individual accused of a misdemeanor — those accused of felonies are taken to state hospitals — the person is ordered to the PHF for a professional evaluation as to whether he or she can stand trial.
There’s a waiting list and it can take months for a person to even be admitted to the PHF, she said.
Once they’re admitted, an evaluation is started.
About a dozen times over the past year, a PHF psychiatrist will make a recommendation to the court, and “it’s not uncommon where the court rejects our findings,” Lundt said.
The length of stay for patients declared incompetent to stand trial is three and half times longer than other patients.
Even if a person is deemed incompetent by both PHF officials and the court, the person will often have to stay in the PHF unit until other housing becomes available, even if the charges have been dropped.
“There is a feeling that the public defenders are using this as a way to get treatment for some of their clients if they feel there’s no other way to get them treatment,” Lundt said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
