SAN JOSE
– County Sheriff’s deputies voted Tuesday afternoon to forgo
their 7.5 percent raise expected in September in order to alleviate
some of the county’s massive $160 million bugdet deficit and save
some of their own jobs.
SAN JOSE – County Sheriff’s deputies voted Tuesday afternoon to forgo their 7.5 percent raise expected in September in order to alleviate some of the county’s massive $160 million bugdet deficit and save some of their own jobs.
“This is a first,” said District 1 County Supervisor Don Gage. “I think this is a very positive and smart move on the deputies’ part. This shows that they are team players and more concerned about public safety than themselves. … I think this will prevent some layoffs.”
The move, which was approved by a 76 percent majority of the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of Santa Clara County, will save the Sheriff’s Department roughly $4.5 million over the next year along with some of the 81 deputy positions that are threatened by the fiscal shortfall.
In February, Sheriff Laurie Smith was asked by the county to identify areas where her department could trim $8 million of its $83 million budget – an almost 10 percent reduction for the 550 badge-membered unit.
Smith is out of town and was unavailable for comment today, but in a previous interview with The Dispatch she said South County would likely be hardest hit by the cuts to the Sheriff’s Department. The cuts could include the loss of South County’s rural deputy who works with ranchers, the fish and game warden and two plain-clothes deputies.
The South County Sheriff’s sub-station in San Martin currently has nine full-time Sheriff’s deputies along with two positions – the rural deputy and one plain-clothes deputy – that have been held vacant for the past six months, according to Sheriff’s Association President Lt. Jose Salcido.
“We feel at this time of needed security, war and soaring unemployment rate that we cannot have cutbacks on public safety,” Salcido said. “When I started getting calls from our young guys asking how long they had until they got their pink slips, I knew we had to do something.”
That’s when Salcido – inspired by his hero Cesar Chavez – called a March 6 meeting with the deputies association to suggest foregoing their yearly contract negotiations scheduled for September. Currently, a county deputy’s base salary of $61,488 is 7.5 percent, or approximately $4,611, below that of an entry-level officer’s in the San Jose Police Department, and historically the county has tried to keep pace with the SJPD’s salaries, Salcido said.
“We’re hoping that by agreeing to a 0 percent raise we can save jobs and fill some vacant positions,” Salcido said. “Areas like South County will be devastated by any further cuts. … I’m really proud our guys reacted like this.”
Gage agreed with Salcido, pointing out that Sheriff emergency response times in South County are already more than double that of the more populated areas of the county.
“Twenty minutes for response times (in South County) is already too long,” Gage said.
Something that can help South County’s long response times is filling its two vacant deputy positions, which could be done with some of the 21 current members of the Sheriff’s academy that are planning to graduate from the sixth-month long program in the coming months, Salcido said. The department currently has 46 vacant deputy positions.
“It costs the county $60,000 to put someone through the academy,” Salcido said. “So it would be a shame if we could not place them and lost all of that training.”
The deputies association will suggest that the remaining $3.5 million in Sheriff’s cutbacks be made in the administration offices and the department’s several outreach programs, many of which have already been proposed for the budget ax.
Salcido also said that he will lobby the County Board of Supervisors to move their department from Priority Two to Priority One designation, which would save it $500,000.
Under the county’s current budget solution formula, departments designated Priority One, including public service, would take an 8 percent budget hit during the next year; Priority Two designation, which includes criminal justice, would see a 9 percent budget decrease; and Priority Three departments ,such as social services, would have their annual budget slashed by 10 percent.
“It’s my suggestion to move all first responders – police and fire – (to Priority One designation),” Gage said. “They are critical components of public safety.”
The deputies have also proved they are critical to county morale, Gage said.
“If other departments follow this unselfish model,” Gage said, “it will be a very positive step to solving this budget.”
