LAKEPORT— The Lake County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved its final budget on Thursday and decided during the hearing to put cannabis tax revenue toward funding two additional sheriff’s deputies.
The supervisors agreed to move $200,000 from the cannabis program fund to the sheriff’s office, following a presentation from Sheriff Brian Martin, during which he described the department as “significantly understaffed.” Martin said the office had a 19% vacancy rate with 29 vacant positions.
“The staffing levels to me are very concerning,” he said.
A budget of $9.3 million was approved for the sheriff’s department, the same as the year prior.
Martin said the average response time for the department was between 30 to 40 minutes, and up to an hour during certain times of the day. Supervisor Bruno Sabatier said the slow response time was scary for officers, and the public.
Sabatier said that if positions had to go unfunded, it shouldn’t be those of deputy sheriffs because lacking police presence on the streets could encourage bad behavior.
“I would definitely like to change that,” Sabatier said.
Supervisor Tina Scott said the community respected Martin and was lucky to have him as its sheriff. Scott said she agreed that the immediate focus should be on funding deputies, suggesting the use of cannabis tax revenue.
During public comment, Lance Williams with the Lake County Cannabis Alliance said legal growers were concerned about a lack of staffing within the sheriff’s department.
“A person of color myself, I do support Black Lives Matter,” Williams said. “I really want this money to go to the police department. I want our community to feel safe.”
The supervisors also discussed having other departments bring proposals to the board in the future for ongoing funding allocations from cannabis tax revenue.
Martin said hiring wasn’t an issue — it was retaining people that was hard because of low salaries. Social Services Director Crystal Markytan also said that the social services department had trouble with turnover, with two experienced employees leaving in the past week for other opportunities. Markytan said the department was at a “tipping point” with a 21% vacancy rate.
Supervisors heard from the environmental health department that some employees were exhausted, still working 60-70 hours a week since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that some lower level workers were making more than their bosses because they received overtime while managers were salaried employees.
The county projects that sales tax revenue in 2020-2021 will be 80% lower than the previous budget year because of the pandemic.
In their 2019-20 Grand Jury report, the jurors concluded that consideration should be given to combine the appropriate sections that deal with hemp and cannabis from the Agriculture and Planning departments together under one entity. “Having a single regulating entity would serve to localize and coordinate the necessary expertise and eliminate a redundancy of effort and possible costs,” read the Grand Jury analysis.
