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Sheriff details staffing needs, training and body‑camera plan amid rising jail population
Summary
Sheriff Hennessy presented the department’s FY15–16 overview, citing a general fund budget of about $203 million, jail population increases (average daily population ~1,293 early 2016), staffing vacancies and plans to hire for a new SF General Hospital, expand training (implicit bias, crisis intervention), audit internal affairs, add an ombudsman position and deploy 60 body‑worn cameras for county jails.
Sheriff Vernelia Hennessy (identified in the transcript as "Sheriff Hennessy") briefed the committee on the Sheriff’s Department budget and priorities, saying the department continues to be understaffed and has been relying heavily on overtime.
Hennessy said the department's general‑fund expenditures for FY15–16 were about $203,000,000 "and some change," and provided staffing numbers: authorized civilian staff around 208 with current civilian staff about 163 and roughly 45 vacancies; authorized sworn staff about 894 with current sworn staffing about 819 and roughly 75 sworn vacancies. She said average daily jail population in 2015 was about 1,218 and rose to about 1,293 in early 2016; alternatives to incarceration also numbered in the 800s.
Top priorities listed by Hennessy included increasing hiring (two academy classes per year and recruiting academy‑trained personnel), hiring 31 staff to staff the new San Francisco General Hospital facility, and reducing overtime through increased hiring. The sheriff also described training investments (implicit‑bias training, crisis intervention and de‑escalation), planned audits of the internal affairs unit to improve transparency and information‑technology work to make data more accessible for oversight.
Hennessy said she is requesting a jail ombudsman position to monitor care inside jails and proposed deploying 60 body‑worn cameras for county jail operations as well as retrofitting County Jail 2 to meet standards for kitchen, laundry and housing configurations. She also described grant‑funded programs (e.g., a mentally ill offender grant providing transitional housing and peer supports) and in‑jail services such as the 5 Keys charter school, which operates through ADA funding and is largely self‑supporting.
Next steps: the Sheriff’s Department will return with formal budget requests and staffing proposals; the committee continued the Sheriff's item to the call of the chair.
