BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

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Music I'd like to convene our Board of Supervisors budget deliberation hearing of Wednesday, June 12th. Mr. Clerk if you could read the roll call please?

Mr. Adam? Here. Mr Lavinino? Here Ms Wolfe? Here. Ms Farr? Here Mr Carbajal?

We're now going to our county executive office. Our clerk of the board if you could read the agenda items that we're going to consider next.

Chairman Carbajal, members of the board our first group of departmental budgets this morning will be fire probation and the sheriff but in advance of that we do have one request to speak for public comment Clara McDonald.

Thank you thank you for reminding me of that any other public speakers?

Just one request to speak

Good morning.

Good morning, my name is Clara McDonald and we're here on behalf of the IHSS providers and clients. I have personally been a home care provider for almost 39 years here in Santa Barbara County. I have had many clients in that time and some for over 10 years. I have two clients now, one who has family but the family is not able to care for him. But over time he has come to trust me and will allow me to help him where his family cannot. My other client has no family and depends on me for everything, going to doctor's appointments, cooking, shopping for groceries and errands, helping to bathe, doing his laundry We are a lot of the times the only contact that they have with other people.

We become family to them, and they also become a part of our family. Because of home care providers like myself, our clients are able to stay at home and have their independence. I would just like to ask the Board of Supervisors to please continue to fully support the In-Home Supportive Services Program. Thank you.

Thank you. Is that it for our public speakers?

That

was it. No more public speakers? Seeing none, we'll turn it over to our second day of deliberation CEO Waller and then our fire department.

Thank you chair. We have just a couple of updates to your binders and information that we've passed out this morning and I'm going to ask Tom Alvarez, our budget director, to walk us through that.

So we have two updates in section 2. Those are the board inquiry forms. Those are in green today, so we have updates in that. So we have updates for you in that area. We've also posted those online In addition to that, we have also green handouts in tab 31 which are the departmental requested expansions restorations The item that was discussed with County Council was not posted on there And there's one of the department that had one that they had not submitted so those are both on page 1 of your pack of your tab 31 and it was kind of council and mental health Those are all the updates. Thank

you, Mr. Alvarez and with that before we go to fire just want to remind my colleagues that if there is an opportunity for us to Conclude our hearing today earlier, it may lend itself to possible deliberation. To kick off our deliberation for Friday and to the extent that your offices could work with your staffs on identifying Things you like to cut, things you like to add. Expansions you'd like to have the rest of our colleagues consider. If you guys could work on that it would be great so that again if it lends itself to that we could just commence laying down the foundation for our final hearing on Friday.

With that Mr. Dyer, Chief Dyer.

Chairman Carbajal, members of the board, chief executive officer, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Fire Chief Michael W. Dyer and I have Deputy Chief Chris Hahn to my right, Fiscal Manager Diane Sauer to my left, and we're here to present the fire department fiscal year 13-14 budget. As you can see up on the screen, the fire department operating budget is just over $51 million with a $440,000 in capital project money.

We have general fund contribution of zero and that's directly related to the fire property transfer last year as well as the movement of the fire department into a special revenue fund. We show 229 FTEs This is a reduction of 56.3 FTEs since fiscal year 2007-08. 36 of these FTEs are related to fire and emergency medical services equating to a reduction overall of 14%.

The FTE reductions consist of service level reductions that include 24 fuels crew members, 10 emergency responders including engine 11 and the fourth firefighter at engine 22 One EMS administrator, three fire prevention captain engineers, four hazardous material unit specialists from the hazmat unit and four FTEs for various support personnel including IT and administrative office professionals.

Also included in the 56.3 FTE reduction are the 16 Hazardous Material Unit FTEs transferring to public health in fiscal year 13-14. Onward to the fiscal year 2012-13 accomplishments, we had many. These are the highlights. First of all, we completed a career development guide for our department, the first one that's ever been completed. This is a step by step guide for our leaders of the future so when a firefighter shows up their first day at work They'll be able to look at this guide and it will tell them how to become an engineer, how to become a fire captain, how to become a battalion chief, how become a division chief. And so really it gives them a path for promotion in leadership positions in the future. It's a guide for them to follow.

How does that fit in with the professional development incentive program that I know you've put together, and you're hoping that our board in the future addresses that in some way? Does it dovetail into that?

Chairman Carbajal, members of the board it does. The professional incentive plan that I proposed is part of the overall career development guide and if we consider that in the near future for our managers it will assist our managers in achieving some of these career goals and really set the department up for the future leaders you know for the future for years to come

thank you

Next, we did critical command emergency incident management training for all of our chief officers. And this was for large and complex fires much like we get here in Santa Barbara County. We reviewed operational and financial requirements related to a multitude of interagency agreements. And I'd consider this critical training due to our turnover in personnel Including some of our battalion chiefs. So this training came well in hand, and we practiced this training recently as you know at some recent fires we had. This training is critical that we keep it up annually.

We also updated our department's strategic plan, and that's important because of the changing environment out there. Our department needs to react to that and position itself better for the future including affordable health care as we all know. And so the strategic plan was updated and the fire department is better positioned for the future. Updated our fire service training curriculum and we collaborated with an accredited educational institution to recognize fire service training as formal credits toward higher education. So when firefighters get fire service training, we've worked with an accredited institution to recognize that training. And so then it'll be applied toward AA degree, BA degree, a master's degree.

I would ask the Chair, even though he's choking over here. Mr. Lavinino. Thank you Chief. We have the right people in the audience today for ya. Hey Chief how does that tie in with the CityGate recommendations regarding training? Does this get us to where we need to be or I know some of that had to do with getting the right people hired in the training department.

Supervisor Lavinino through Supervisor Carbajal. It is tied to the CityGate report, it's important to recognize and it's also part of the professional incentive plan that Supervisor Carbajal referenced earlier. It's all tied together with the CityGate report to build our leaders for the future. And so one component by itself doesn't work, but we have to look at this fire service training. We've had firefighters that have done 25-30 years of fire service training, but it's not recognized by an institution. So what we did was we went out there to accredited institutions that are now going to recognize some of this valuable training toward a higher level education degree.

Next, we updated our operating plan and automatic aid agreements with the Los Padres National Forest and Cal Fire. And this clarified our operational financial responsibilities. And I can tell you that on the recent white fire, that really came in handy. We also updated our automatic aid agreements with Santa Maria City Fire and Santa Barbara City Fire which will enhance our emergency response in these areas and also ensure that the closest resources are responding without regard to boundary.

So those closest resources will respond. We also updated the countywide emergency communications plan which ensures dependable coordinated communications procedures for all county fire service first responders and I'm also proud to Report that we acquired 12 lead defibrillators through the Fire Act grant. These defibrillators are much like the defibrillators you see in a doctor's office, they're 12 lead and they ensure a higher level of cardiac diagnostics increasing the survival rate of cardiac arrest patients out in the field.

This grant also provided 80% of the funding for the defibrillators saving several hundred thousand dollars in fire district funds. On to the fiscal year 2013 potential service level reductions. Before your board is the shutdown of Engine 11 in Goleta, which has nine positions. The cost to restore is $1.5 million and unstaffed the four-firefighter post position at Station 22 in Orkut. Cost to restore is about $411,000.

These nine positions will no longer be on duty at Station 11 Engine 11 responded to 1429 calls in 2012 or 10% of the department's total responses. I think it's also fair to recognize that in the last year, the overall department response volume has gone up 8 1⁄2%. Over the last five years, it's gone up 34%, and over the last ten years, it's gone up 118%. So system-wide we're seeing a large increase in responses.

Engine 11 is a critical response resource in Goleta, also for UCSB and the Highway 101 corridors as well as major commercial industrial high-density residential centers. The recent CityGate report speaks of the multiple units that are needed to deliver enough firefighters in a reasonable time to take care of critical emergencies so without engine 11 there fire engines are going to have to come from further away to assist with these critical emergencies.

Also, water rescue responses will be delayed. Engine 11 is a designated water rescue resource so engines are going to have to come from further away to assist with water rescues and I can tell you that during the summer months we average at least one water rescue a day in Santa Barbara. Truck Company 11 would now respond to all calls in Station 11's district. Truck 11 is a regional resource and is available throughout the county for structure fires, technical rescue and other specialized needs. And now with Engine 11 being gone this will reduce their availability for these complex missions.

Now addressing the fourth fire position at Station 22. Currently we have four post positions at Station 22 with the reduction of the fourth firefighter that will reduce our EMS capability in the region and also reduce, much like Engine 11 being gone, that extra firefighter being there will reduce our overall ability with firefighters to take care of critical incidents if we need to.

Also at that station, Water Tender 22 responded to 36 calls in 2012. With the fourth firefighter being gone, that water tender will no longer be available for these calls and there are a number of areas out there in the Orchid area that don't have water and that water tenders critical in order to put out these fires. Last year Engine 22 responded to 1,472 calls in 2012 or 10% of the department's total responses.

Also one note is in the Orchard area there, the EMS call to resident is just under 8-1 and if you compare that to the San Ynez Valley it's 18-1. So in that particular area we have a higher volume of EMS calls per resident. And finally to summarize last year these service level reductions were restored by the Board of Supervisors via union concessions which are no longer available

Supervisor Wolf.

Thank you Mr. Chair, Chief Dyer thank you thus far for your presentation and I just want to before getting into this item I want to commend you on your work on getting the defibrillators that grant. You and I had talked about that for quite some time and you were working very diligently to get that money so I congratulate you and your staff for getting that.

You're correct when you stated that last year this item came before us and I do believe it was taken off the reduction list. It was a unanimous vote by the board, and at that time You made an excellent case, as I believe you did this time for keeping those positions staffed. And I remember stating from the dais that I wasn't going to be making decisions based on potential employee concessions. Now ultimately that did happen.

I think that this service, this program that we have in the community obviously is still needed. And in fact hearing you today it sounds like there's even a greater need to maintain the service not just for that community but for the impact that it'll have on surrounding communities. As far as drawing and resources. So this is a service level reduction that I was concerned about last year and voted against, and I'm concerned about this year. So it's disappointing to see it on the list but that's how it goes and we'll have our deliberations and hear from the public. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Please proceed Mr. Dyer. Navigating toward a stable future I'd like to state that there are risks and opportunities associated with salary and employee benefit costs. On the risk side, the negotiated salary increases in increased benefit costs will currently offset the property tax transfer, property tax growth, RDA dissolution and other revenue growth that could occur. On the opportunity side as we all know the PEPRA was passed by the state. We are going to have reduced retirement costs in the future from the PEPRA and I think that's important to consider.

Also, the cost allocation charges were not anticipated when the property tax transfer was proposed. This will also perpetually erode gains from property tax growth. Another risk is EMS oversight quality assurance training and compliance. The EMS administrator position that we cut two years ago should be restored as soon as possible to ensure the department's EMT and paramedic programs continue to comply with state and county standards. The cost to restore this critical position is approximately $150,000.

Another risk to be concerned about is the capital improvement plan. The department currently has a 78 million dollar capital improvement program for fire capital needs but only 10 million or 13% of this funding source has been identified. Right now we have five stations over 40 years of age and four stations over 50 years of age. Finally, the CityGate report on operations enhancement plan that I brought before your Honorable Board last April will serve as a guide for future emergency service level enhancements.

Recent service level reductions in emergency medical services fire prevention and fuels crew need to be addressed when additional funding is available. And what I'd like to say in regards to fire prevention and the fuels crew, we're looking at revenue offset options with fire prevention including inspection and permit fees. We're also looking at some partnerships to try to fund the fuels crew through other means such as Edison and a few of our private cooperators out there. And with that, that's it. I'm available for any questions.

Supervisor Wolf?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Dyer I have a list of potential gap solutions from your department two of which were the ones that were shown here There's a few other ones, the water tender deferral, apparatus deferrals, fleet reduction. Those would total about $1 million. Are any of those... Obviously they're not on your list but I just want to ask the question. Are any of those items something that you as chief think that might be appropriate rather than what we have just seen?

Chairman Carvajal, Supervisor Wolf. Absolutely. I think one of the one-time fixes on there is reducing the Type 3 engine fleet from 16 engines down to 12 engines That would save us $710,000 at one time. Approximately 74, I believe 74-75,000 ongoing. That fleet reduction will not impair service delivery. An example is neighboring Ventura County Fire Department which is twice our size has 11 of these type 3 engines. We have 16.

So I believe that this is an efficiency we could find inside. It's something I would do even if we weren't making cuts, and I believe that'll help us as we move forward. I think the water tender and some of the other vehicle options on there, I had them on there because what I was trying to do even if it meant using one time money which I'm not very fond of Is trying to get to that point where the property tax transfer is going to kick in and be able to help us with ongoing money. And as you know, that's all depending on property tax growth and it's slated out between seven and ten years.

You know, it's interesting that you brought up the property tax growth because that was one of my board inquiry forms. And we got the results this morning and I was reading it and... It looks as if the auditor controller staff is estimating a 3% growth. We can talk about all this later but as it relates to fire, it says that there would be an increase of about $225,000 to the fire district And this is kind of hot off the press.

Did you know about this?

I was aware that the property tax had, I believe it went up to 2.6, was

it?

3.5. Well, I wasn't aware of that.

Okay. So that's another potential source of 225. Anyway, thank you Mr. Dyer, to you, your staff and all the firefighters who continue to protect and serve our county.

Thank you. CEO Waller or Mr. Alvarez did I get a sense that you wanted to say something?

Chair, I was just going to make mention of the fact that that information had not been shared with the fire department or others because it's very preliminary. And as your board will remember last year we actually were a little too aggressive in our projections and had a one and a half million dollar shortfall So since it's such a very unconfirmed guesstimate at this point in time, we really weren't proposing that the fire department or others depend upon that until we get a little bit more certainty to it.

Thank you. Supervisor Farr?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well I wanted to echo Supervisor Wolf's comments not only thanking you for all of your wonderful service but also stressing the critical importance of keeping Station 11 fully staffed. That is right in the middle of the most densely populated area in our entire county and provides multiple services including the water rescue and as you say one a day during the summer is tremendous So I'm going to be looking at all options to see how we might be able to fund that again this year.

I did want to ask you though, a lot of the departments are carrying over fund balance to try to soften whatever may be happening next year. And I'm just wondering if that is the case for you, and in addition to these other areas that Supervisor Wolf has talked about as far as how you might be able to save money or make different cuts in order to find the funds for Station 11.

What was your rationale? If you have fund balance why you're not using it to help offset these cuts?

Chairman, Supervisor Farr through Chairman Carbajal. It's been fire department past practice since I've been here to utilize every and every available fund to fund ongoing operations. So if I have the ability to do that again, I'd do the same thing. However looking forward we have to address the ongoing structural issue and hopefully through the one time savings property tax growth RDA . » Okay. So you don't have fund balance that could go Supervisor Farr through Chairman Carball, I do have fund balance to use.

And how much would that be?

Roughly 2.5 million dollars.

Okay and Mr. Fire Chief if you could indicate because you and I've had these discussions if you were to utilize this money to restore services this year what would be your net deficit in 14-15?

What we're looking at now is a net deficit of 2.5, 2.6 million but that doesn't include 1.2 million in RDA money. There's a lot of variables out there is my point I mean there is a big deficit that we're looking at now but there's a lot of unknowns.

Okay so in effect you have the money now but you're choosing to save it in order to meet what you see as your projected deficit for the next fiscal

year? I would like to use the money now

Okay, thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Supervisor Lavinino? Thank you Mr. Chair. Chief Dyer I'm not familiar with station or Engine 11 in Goleta or the Goleta Station if nine positions are cut what does that leave at Goleta how bare bones would they be?

Supervisor Lavinino through Chairman Carbajal it would leave three firefighters on duty on Truck Company 11

OK, so it eliminates an additional truck?

Supervisor Lavinino through Chairman Carball. That's correct. It's basically you have at Station 11 you have three firefighters on the engine daily which is a total of nine positions because of three shifts and then you have three firefighters on duty daily with Truck 11 which is nine firefighters.

Do we have that at other stations? Is that normal?

No, we don't. This is the one station in the county where we have two engines

available.

Is that because

of amount of calls?

That's correct. It's because of the dense populated area, and because I mentioned before like the CityGate report said you need between 12 and 15 firefighters on scene for any kind of routine structure fire. And those firefighters are doing complex critical tasks, and if you don't have enough firefighters on scene within a critical time frame at the beginning you could possibly lose life and or property.

Thanks Chief.

Thank you. Does that conclude your presentation?

Chairman Cabal is correct.

You know, I do have one question going back to the question I raised. How much would it take to implement your professional incentive plan? And the reason I ask is that I think kudos to our sheriff who are going to present in a while but over the years I've noticed that they have a pretty good incentive plan that they've put together over the years And I have noticed that the fire department doesn't have much of those same incentives. And I'm just wondering what your plan would cost? I think it was 80 something thousand, I can't recall.

Chairman Carball, that's correct. It costs $80,000 and I believe we were talking about absorbing it into the fire department budget which in the big scheme of things isn't that much money. And what I think it'll do long term as we discussed earlier is from a career development standpoint it really incentivizes people going out to get certifications, degrees to be our leaders of the future. An example is a fire captain gets an EMT bonus, but then when they promote to battalion chief they no longer get the EMT bonus so there's no incentive for them to keep their EMT even though we ask them to do that because they're driving around out there And we need to have an EMT, who's a fire service personnel. So the long answer to your short question is that this and some of the things we actually looked at the sheriff's program and we incorporated in ours.

And I think it's a great tool to incentivize our future leaders.

And again, that was 80 what thousand?

Between 80 and 90,000. OK.

If you could tighten up those numbers and get them back to us, that would be great for the end of the week.

Thank you.

One other question. Supervisor Lavinino?

Thank you Mr. Chair. And I'm just...I know this is going to be a policy question and figure out how we do this but I just want to know what we're dealing with so there's $2.5 million carryover. $710,000 that is still that you're recommending in a fleet reduction. And I'm not saying we're spending this. I'm just trying to figure out what's out there. And then, I have written down another $225,000 but I can't remember.

That was the increase in the property tax. Assuming it comes to be. All right, assuming all this assumption. I am just trying to figure out where we are at. OK, thank you.

Supervisor Adam? Are you feeling like ORCiT is going to be okay cutting down Station 22? You're not eliminating Station 22, you're just doing a similar staff reduction.

Supervisor Adam through the Chair I don't feel like it would be okay with the four firefighters leaving ORCit that while the engine would be there that four firefighters are critical component in that area because as you know Those two engines are there together for quite some period of time before they get help. And every firefighter is doing sometimes two or three different jobs at the very beginning of a complex emergency incident.

Well, I get all that and I understand but we're having to square circle here and it's not easy so I'm wondering if I should be making more of an issue of this or is this something that really is going to be okay? Or are you gonna use your fund balance and you're gonna have the fleet reduction, and we're gonna be okay in the end anyway.

Supervisor Adam through the chair, to address your first question I This firefighter is a critical resource over there at that station. So I don't think it'll be good without that firefighter. The second question is, there are some unknown variables still out there. The $710,000, I believe there's about $1.2 million in RDA money that's not budgeted and then their property tax growth. There's still a lot of variables and At this point in time, I'd like to come back and really look at all these options in six months. But let me use my fund balance and let me fund both of these critical resources that the fire department needs to provide service.

Thank you, Mr. Dyer. I believe that concludes the presentation? Great, thank you very much. We will now go to our probation department. Chief Probation Officer Beverly Taylor and her staff will provide the following presentation.

Good morning. I'm Beverly Taylor, Chief Probation Officer and I am honored to be here today to present the probation department's fiscal year 2013-2014 proposed budget. Also present here with me today are Damon Fletcher, Administrative Deputy Director and Deputy Chief Probation Officers Stephen DeLera and Tanya Heitman. The probation department's mission statement is to protect and serve the community by providing information and recommendations to the court.

We provide safe, secure, and effective juvenile detention and treatment facilities. We enforce court orders and supervise offenders by requiring the offender responsibility and accountability, and support their rehabilitation. And we provide victim services that include facilitating reparation and restitution to our victims. Probation's fiscal year 13-14 proposed operating budget is approximately $50 million.

Of this amount, 50% is general fund financed. This is a 3% decrease from the current fiscal year. This is largely due to increased public safety realignment and public safety sales tax revenue. FTEs will decrease by 8.2 from the current fiscal year, a reduction that's primarily due to reducing staff at the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall. Since fiscal year 07-08, the Probation Department has reduced its workforce by 75 positions or a decrease of 19%.

I will address later how ongoing reductions have begun to negatively impact service delivery and outcomes. While the department's accomplishments are many, I will highlight a few. The department's chief innovation officer integrated the RevQ collection system with the department's case management and cashiering systems. This integration increased efficiencies by eliminating redundant data entry.

It also provides our officers with up to date offender payment status reports to facilitate victim restitution. And to increase efficiencies while working in the field, laptops were installed in selected department vehicles providing our officers with full access to departmental computing systems. This also increased officer effectiveness by making more offender information available and notably increased productivity by eliminating the need to return to the office to update records.

The Federal Prison Rape Elimination Act or PREA prohibits and seeks to eliminate sexual assaults and sexual misconduct in correctional facilities. To address the requirements and deadlines of this act, all of our institution's personnel, volunteers, and contractors received the requisite basic training as required by law. And to ensure that the department maintains compliance, a probation manager has been identified to lead this effort.

Demand staffing continues to be a priority. The institution's use of demand staffing combined with the reduced population that allowed management to hold vacancies significantly contributed to the department meeting current fiscal year's budgeted salary savings, so I'll say great job to our institution staff for that. Females in the juvenile justice system present unique challenges and require specific interventions.

Over the last three years, the percentage of female referrals has increased from 23 1⁄2 to nearly 28%. Through the use of grant funds, wraparound reserves and collaborative community efforts, gender-specific programs and opportunities in a juvenile division are expanding. The Juvenile Division continues to look to strengthen evidence-based programs and strategies.

Through the use of one time state funding, probation personnel, county partners and treatment providers received training in Moral Reconation Therapy or MRT. MRT is a treatment strategy that seeks to decrease recidivism among criminal offenders by increasing moral reasoning. With training completed, MRT will soon be implemented in the alternative report and resource centers.

The supervision of sex offenders in the community is a significant concern for the department due to risk to public safety. The Sex Offender Containment Model, a new state mandate, is an evidence-based sex offender strategy that involves a collaboration between probation, treatment providers and a polygraph examiner This model, which has been fully implemented includes the use of an evidence-based risk assessment tool to assess risk factors combined with polygraph examinations as part of a comprehensive supervision and treatment strategy that is proven effective in reducing recidivism.

Recent military actions have increased the occurrence of post-traumatic stress syndrome and resulted in a focus on the specific needs of returning veterans. Veterans in the criminal justice system present unique challenges due to PTSS, and an enhanced potential for violence due to military training. The adult division this year was successful in their application of a Veterans Treatment Court grant.

This grant provides funding to add a probation officer to the existing Veteran Treatment Court in Santa Maria. To note, the officer overseeing the caseload is also a veteran which gives this officer an increased specialization and a greater ability to work with our veterans. Ms. Taylor can you go back? Sure.

Just to that slide, what is moral recognition therapy? And how is that done? How do you teach somebody morals? I'm just wondering.

So thank you for asking that question. It's a... Okay. Let me just read this. Moral Recognition Therapy is a systematic treatment strategy that seeks to decrease recidivism among our juvenile and adult criminal offenders by increasing moral reasoning. It's a cognitive behavioral approach that combines elements from a variety of psychological traditions to progressively address ego, social, moral and positive behavioral growth.

Thank you. Welcome.

Sigmund Freud would be very proud Please proceed.

Thank you So our potential service level impacts. Balancing the department's fiscal year 13-14 budget includes a reduction of approximately $919,000 from the current fiscal year and what was believed to be an additional loss of $600,000 in state revenue. The loss of state revenue would have eliminated three targeted gang intervention officers and their supervisor.

Thankfully, the governors may revise restored most of the statewide funding allowing the department to save these positions. A final budget adjustment has been submitted restoring the funding and the related positions. So to meet the $900,000 gap the department is proposing to eliminate standby transportation from Santa Barbara to the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall.

In fiscal year 08-09 your board will recall that the Santa Barbara Juvenile Hall was reduced from a full time juvenile hall to a booking station. The booking station was staffed during high activity periods. To minimize the impact on local law enforcement agencies, a standby transportation component was implemented during non-operation hours. With continued fiscal shortfalls, the booking station was subsequently eliminated and today only the on call transportation component remains.

With additional cuts pending, the remaining on-call services will be eliminated effective July 1. This reduction is mitigated by the fact that overall bookings continue to decline. The department will also reduce the staff capacity of the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall from 110 to 90 youth. In fiscal year 12-13, the average daily population has been 80. The institution's managers have successfully used demand staffing and have maintained vacancies that match staffing to population.

Because of their prudent management of resources, the reduction of 7 FTE will not result in a loss of staff. Now there have been periods in the current fiscal year when the population has exceeded 90 and this does present a significant financial risk. Due to mandated staffing ratios, if the population goes over 90, the staffing required would cost approximately $400 additionally per day.

The cost increases to approximately $2,300 a day for any day the population goes over 100. So, the viability of our juvenile alternative reporting resource centers will play a vital role in ensuring that 90 beds are sufficient for managing the local juvenile detention population. With eliminating the on-call transportation service and reducing the beds at the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall, the probation department has closed its budget gap.

The fiscal challenges by the county over the last six years have been unprecedented. Since fiscal year 07-08, the Probation Department alone eliminated 75 FTEs. The department has and continues to prioritize its resources to ensure that the strongest core services remain. With a reduction in workload, while a reduction in workload was our saving grace. The probation department is beginning to experience an upward trend in the adult division and any reductions beyond what has been proposed today would have a significant impact to service level delivery and public safety.

The Adult Medium Supervision caseloads were eliminated as part of our budget reductions previously to maintain supervision for the highest risk and need adult offenders. As the budget stabilizes, the restoration of the Adult Medium caseloads in each area office is a departmental priority. Evidence shows That the use of medium caseloads to gradually reduce the level of supervision as offenders successfully serve their probation terms does reduce recidivism and increases positive outcomes for the offender, thereby increasing public safety.

The department has continued to look for ways to increase efficiencies. One example is the successful development and use of kiosks to externalize workload to our offenders. This reduced redundant data entry and the need to handle and scan paper by non-sworn personnel. Innovations like this have enabled the Probation Department to absorb the hit of reductions over the past years. However, the model of doing more with less is no longer possible. In many instances staff are now doing less with less.

The reduction in non-sworn personnel has created staffing challenges, especially when accommodating vacations, training, furloughs and sicknesses. In addition, activities which could be completed by non-sworn personnel are at times being redirected to sworn staff at a higher cost. And limited staffing has stalled completion of other cost-saving projects, such as moving forward towards a paperless case file system.

The restoration of a portion of the previously eliminated non-sworn staff would allow the department to enhance effective and efficient operations as we move forward. The Alternative Report and Resource Centers were developed to provide a cost-effective alternative to detention. The centers, which are located in Santa Maria and Santa Barbara operate during after school hours and on the weekends. They provide a positive prosocial environment offering services which include counseling groups, homework assistance and tutoring and on the weekends offer a variety of community service projects.

With the reduction of the beds at the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall, it is anticipated that this program will grow and consequently it may be necessary in the future to come back to your board to request additional juvenile institution officer resources to meet the increased demand. The department currently is struggling with increased workload in adult investigations. Overtime and extra help have been employed to meet this demand.

Two additional investigators would allow the department to eliminate the use of extra help and overtime, and meet current and anticipated future demand. In closing, I would like to thank you Chair Carbajal and supervisors for your ongoing support to the Probation Department. Our mission is important and during the leanest of times the probation department personnel have demonstrated their commitment and passion to our mission.

And on that note, I am pleased that our CEO is recommending to your board that you consider management compaction and compensation Our department's foremost senior probation managers are making annually $7,500 to $9,700 less than their subordinates. I strongly support this recommendation by our CEO and urge your board to move forward on it. Thank you.

Thank you Ms. Taylor. Questions? Comments? Supervisor Lavinino and then Supervisor Wolff. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Ms. Taylor, on the potential service level reductions and you might have hit this and I just missed it but the first item was the eliminating of the three gang intervention officers and that's crossed out. Was that funded through a grant or was that just taken off the list for what reason?

So in the Governor's May revise, the funding that was initially proposed to be reduced in January was almost nearly restored completely so we were able to have funds to restore those positions.

Okay great. Number two is, so all we have in the South County is a holding cell for juveniles. We don't have a full-on juvenile hall?

So right now we only have transportation. So on call transportation for South County law enforcement agencies.

So what we're saying is we would need to eliminate that standby transportation and whoever picks up The juvenile is going to have to transport much like we do in Santa Maria. If you pick up somebody, you have to drive them to Santa Barbara to the jail.

Correct? Correct.

Have we looked because now it just seems like we've got, we're going to have staff from both law enforcement officers up in the Santa Maria and Guadalupe area and Lompoc driving to Santa Barbara. In turn, we're going to be passing people coming from Santa Barbara that are taking our juveniles to North County. Are we looking at trying to coordinate that or And number two is, is there a way to privatize the transportation part of it where we're not having our high paid staff having to drive these individuals that we can somehow? I mean, I know bail officers transport criminals.