The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office has spent $5.3 million on overtime staffing in the first three months of the fiscal year, according to the County Executive Office.
That’s about half of the annual overtime budget, and if the spending continues at that rate, the office could go over budget by $9 million.
“A deficit this size could eliminate almost the entire general fund surplus if the department does not take immediate steps to control and reduce costs through the remainder of the fiscal year,” budget analyst Katrina Fernandez said at Tuesday’s county Board of Supervisors meeting.
The Sheriff’s Office regularly goes millions of dollars over budget with overtime costs, and the Board of Supervisors typically approves general fund money to fill the gap.
The Auditor-Controller’s Office submitted a memo last week that digs into the ongoing issue. It analyzed 19,355 timesheets submitted by 824 employees for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The observations include: Some staff earn more in overtime pay than regular pay; there are no limits on employee work time; and mandatory overtime shifts are generally longer than regular work shifts.
“A recurring pattern was identified in which sheriff employees used leave balances (vacation, sick or other leave) to complete ‘time worked’ hours requirements associated with their standard FLSA work period while simultaneously coding overtime hours in the same period.
“This practice seems to effectively increase total overtime hours and was identified in 6,913, or 35.7%, of all timesheets, resulting in an estimated $5.9 million in FY 2024-25 overtime costs,” the memo states.
Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said the report was concerning, and Second District Supervisor Laura Capps upgraded it to “alarming.”
The board decided not to discuss the memo’s finding in depth during the first-quarter budget status report Tuesday. The supervisors asked to have a hearing next year to talk about it.
“This thing has kind of dominated our budget for the last 15 years. I think it deserves its own hearing,” Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said.
Sheriff Bill Brown submitted a brief written response calling the Auditor-Controller analysis “disappointing.”
He wrote that the memorandum “fails to take into consideration the operational realities of a 24/7/365 public safety organization, or the Sheriff’s Office’s longstanding inadequate staffing levels.”
History of Overtime Staffing
The Sheriff’s Office’s recommended budget for the current fiscal year is $224.9 million, with 760 full-time-equivalent employees.
The supervisors asked for an analysis of overtime practices in September, after the Sheriff’s Office went $4.2 million over budget on overtime last year.
Brown and Undersheriff Craig Bonner have said that longtime understaffing has led to significant use of overtime to keep law enforcement and custody operations going.
Overtime leads to morale issues, which contribute to problems hiring and retaining people, they said.
County supervisors have approved a signing bonus and other incentives to boost Sheriff’s Office hiring, which has worked.
In September, Bonner said the office hired more than 100 deputies in the past year, but many of them were still in training and not ready for the field.
