San Bernardino County supervisors propose protections for law enforcement funding

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to place on the Nov. 5 ballot a voter initiative that aims to establish a formula for law enforcement funding in unincorporated communities and make it difficult for future boards to reduce the county’s law enforcement budget.

The San Bernardino County Law Enforcement Staffing and Community Protection Act would require the board to appropriate a minimum amount of funding in its annual budget for patrol personnel’s direct salary and benefits. The minimum amount would be the average of actual patrol personnel salary and benefit costs in the unincorporated area of the county in the three preceding fiscal years.

“We went through an era, that actually still to some degree exists, of ‘defund the police,'” Board of Supervisors Chair Dawn Rowe said in a statement. “This is an opportunity for us to communicate to our residents that we see, hear and understand that they would like to have minimum levels of staffing to ensure that we do have community protections.”

The board could suspend the funding requirement for no more than a year if supervisors declare a fiscal emergency by a minimum four-fifths vote, according to the county statement. Funding for the sheriff’s department during a fiscal emergency would not be factored into future three-year averages unless the board votes unanimously to do so.

“The act would also ensure competitive compensation for the sheriff and district attorney by modernizing the formula used to set their base salaries,” according to the county. The current compensation formula is based on the salaries paid in Kern, Riverside, Orange, San Diego and Ventura counties.

The proposed legislation that voters will consider in November would remove Kern and add Los Angeles County to the formula. The change would also apply to the county’s Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk and Auditor-Controller/Treasurer/Tax Collector.