Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office cuts gang, drug and community policing units

In the face of a $5.5 million budget shortfall, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has axed its narcotics, gang and community policing units while eliminating 21 unfilled positions - moves expected to limit the depth of some investigations and community outreach.

While the cuts will put full-time detectives and community-oriented deputies back onto the street for patrol duty, Assistant Sheriff Rob Giordano said day-to-day operations will remain the same.

“Our fundamental service is when you call 911 we go to your house,” he said. “We’ll still be there when you need help.”

Nonetheless, he acknowledged that across the department “the reality is the service level will drop.”

The cuts, representing roughly 3 percent of the agency’s budget, come even as the Board of Supervisors increased funding to the office by nearly $3.7 million for the current fiscal year, which began this month.

The economy is strong and property tax revenue for the county came in higher than expected, increasing the general fund by roughly 6 percent to $471.8 million. But new labor agreements that provided raises to employees have increased costs by nearly 7 percent across county government, soaking up the additional revenue.

“We had cuts across the board,” said Shirlee Zane, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors. “We’re trying to get our house in financial order by putting money in reserves and paying down liabilities. We need to be as conservative as we can.”

Salary and benefit costs at the Sheriff’s Office have increased by more than $4 million since the 2016-17 fiscal year. At the same time, money the department receives from a state sales tax - supporting 35 percent of the Sheriff’s Office’s $180 million budget - decreased by nearly $1 million.

The largest share of the agency’s budget, roughly half, comes from the county general fund.

For Deputy Mike Vail, president of the Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the cuts come at a time when he says the force should be expanding.

At current staffing levels - 631 civilian and sworn positions - the department has 82 fewer deputy and civilian posts than it did in 2007-08, before the recession forced nearly every local government agency to slash budgets and staff.

“We can barely respond to the 911 calls as it is,” Vail said. “We were already on a shoestring budget. Why the board chose not to give us money to make up the difference and decide to spend money on other things, only they can say.”

Zane noted the board did increase funding for the Sheriff’s Office, which makes up roughly a third of the county’s general purpose spending from the general fund.

“They’ll have to be leaner and meaner without some of the supervisory roles they’ve had,” Zane said. “It’s up to the sheriff to provide emergency services and I think wise choices were made to do so.”

The reshuffling of the Sheriff’s Office has dismayed advocates of community policing, seen as way to build bridges with underserved and minority communities that in some cases voice deep distrust of law enforcement.

The Sheriff’s Office community policy unit had two deputies and a sergeant, two of whom spoke Spanish. The 2016-17 budget had increased funding for the unit to bring on two additional deputies, but those positions were never filled.

“I think that is an important program; I had recommended they beef it up as much as possible,” said Jerry Threet, director of Sonoma County’s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach. “Community policing is particularly important in the Moorland area and Sonoma Valley as a way to build trust with immigrant communities.”

The community policing unit was also the Sheriff’s Office’s primary means of homeless outreach.

A month ago, Sgt. Ray Basurto, who ran the unit, made regular trips to homeless encampments with Catholic Charities workers. As of July 4, when the staff reshuffling kicked in, Basurto was overseeing security at the county courthouse.

“It seems that COPPS is always the first one to get cut,” Basurto said, referring to the community policing program by its acronym. He was also a part of the unit as a deputy before recession-era cuts ended the program in 2011. It was reinstated in 2014 in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by a sheriff’s deputy.

Elimination of the current program is expected to save the agency more than $1 million this fiscal year.

Going forward, all outreach and patrol of homeless encampments, except for Guerneville, where additional resources are being deployed, will be responded to on a “call-by-call” basis, Basurto said.

“We’re not turning our backs on anything.” he said. “It will just be handled differently.”

The three deputies and one sergeant on the countywide gang unit have been reassigned to patrol positions, where they’ll now have to handle gang investigations along with their new primary role of responding to 911 calls. In 2016, the unit made a total of 292 gang-related arrests.

Officers from the California Highway Patrol and Sonoma County Probation who worked full time on the gang unit under the Sheriff’s Office leadership are back at their agencies. The disbandment of the gang unit is slated to save the Sheriff’s Office just under $900,000 for the 2017-18 fiscal year.

Termination of the narcotics unit, including five deputies and one sergeant, comes as the county gears up for full legalization of recreational marijuana. Last year, in the wake of that landmark state vote, the unit shifted focus to the methamphetamine and heroin trades, which have significant yet far smaller footprints in the county.

Two deputies have been reassigned from narcotics to the property crimes investigations, where they will be able to carry on many of the same drug investigations, Giordano said. One deputy has been moved to a federal Drug Enforcement Agency task force and two other have been reassigned to patrol where they will carry on investigating drug crime on the side of taking emergency calls, Giordano said.

Elimination of the narcotics unit is projected to save the Sheriff’s Office $781,424 this fiscal year.

You can reach Staff Writer Nick Rahaim at 707-521-5203 or nick.rahaim@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nrahaim.