Sacramento County Board Moves Forward on Layoffs; More Cuts Ahead

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to move forward on issuing nearly 1,000 layoff notices to county employees on Tuesday, and more cuts to county programs are under consideration as the board looks to close a $181 million budget gap.

Of the 953 positions facing the chopping block, 747 are currently filled; coupled with the county’s 748-person workforce reduction for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the county’s workforce has been whittled down by over 1,700 jobs in the last year.

More cuts are on the horizon to county programs as well. The county’s budget office released recommendations to the board in April that recommended cutting services across the board. Included in these reductions were $25 million in cuts to the probation department, over $2 million in cuts to patrolling and maintenance of the American River Parkway and a $54 million cut to the Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff John McGinness responded to the proposed cuts in a video to residents of Sacramento County. The original proposal to cut $54 million from the department would “virtually eliminate” all patrol and investigations in Sacramento County, the budget office said; McGinness said the shortfall has been modified to $37.6 million, but the cuts would still mean deep cuts to Sheriff’s Department services.

“The bottom line is, we are charged with policing a community of 560,000 people with, frankly, vastly insufficient resources,” McGinness said. Three options currently face the department, he said: The Sheriff’s options are to release inmates from custody and eliminate corrections programs, reduce patrolling services or reduce investigative services. “It’s your money,” he said.

Budget hearings are scheduled to begin the week of June 14 and the proposed layoffs and program cuts would go into affect on July 3 if approved by the board, the county’s budget office said.

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Posted by Anne Lowe on Jun 4 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.