Sacramento Grand Jury: Budget cuts are eroding public safety

12

Jan 2011

The Sacramento County grand jury has taken a snapshot of how budget cuts have hurt a wide-range of government programs - and it's not pretty.

Entitled "Sacramento County under Duress: Problems and Opportunities," the report released today highlights how public safety has been eroded through cuts to county and city programs. At the same time, the grand jury praised interim County Administrator Steve Szalay for coming up with a list of reforms to maximize dwindling resources.

Much of the report looks at law enforcement and social services, and concludes: "Public safety has been compromised and the safety net is in tatters." Some of the deepest cuts have happened in the county's Probation Department, Child Protective Services and the county jail, the report noted.

Some highlights:

The Probation Department has lost almost 40 percent of its staff since 2008, leaving fewer people to supervise adult probationers and juvenile offenders. Only 4 percent of the county's 27,000 probationers are supervised by a probation officer, the report says. Only 20 percent of gang members and sex offenders receive attention from probation officers.

"County budget cuts have devastated the Probation Department. It cannot provide the basic services needed to protect the public," the report says.

Staff cutbacks at Child Protective Services have meant the agency responds to fewer cases, ignoring "borderline" cases where an obvious risk isn't present. The grand jury, among others, has routinely taken the agency to task for failing to protect foster children.

Cuts at the main county jail "have had a severe impact," the report says, with almost 140 positions eliminated in two years. People charged or convicted of a felony take up much of the space, leaving little room for those charged or convicted of a misdemeanor. Staffing shortages have led to morale problems and less time for inmates to be out of cells.

The grand jury also found similar impacts due to cuts to emergency dispatch, fire response and Sacramento city police.

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