Supervisors debate mayor’s request for 41.34 interim positions; sheriff urges filling jail posts earlier

The Budget & Finance Committee considered mayoral requests for interim exceptions to allow 41.34 full-time equivalent positions to begin July 1 and heard competing arguments over timing and urgency.

Budget analyst staff summarized the mayor’s exceptions request, noting the package would authorize about $4.3 million in annual salaries and would produce roughly $1.08 million in additional cost for fiscal year 2008–09 if exceptions are approved now. The analyst recommended the committee review each requested position during scheduled departmental budget hearings to provide a detailed recommendation for each exception rather than approve them en masse.

Nani Kolodemere of the mayor’s budget office said some positions need to start July 1 because departments are already incurring overtime and because some hires relate to settlements and public-safety needs. "There's actually a significant number of positions here for county jail 5 and for alternatives to incarceration, because as you know, we've been having an unplanned, high population at the jails," she told the committee.

Sheriff Mike Hennessey said the Sheriff’s Department is covering needed posts on overtime and that without committee approval the positions could not be filled until September. "If these positions are not approved now... we cannot fill them until September," Hennessey said, adding he already relies on overtime to staff current operations and needs supervisors and counselors on shifts to run dormitory pods safely.

Hennessey described a plan to expand jail-alternative programs — electronic home detention, a NOVA case-management expansion, county parole activity and the SWAP work program — that could reduce the daily population by roughly 60 people (about one pod) if implemented and resourced. He told supervisors the electronic-monitoring contractor has capacity to accept more participants.

The controller’s office (Monique Smuta) confirmed that the positions are funded in next year’s budget but said the committee can act as part of the forthcoming budget review and still have positions become effective July 1 if approved during that process. The budget analyst committed to providing a detailed review of each requested position during the scheduled departmental hearings in the next two weeks.

The committee directed staff to approve the interim appropriation and interim salary ordinances as forwarded (those ordinances did not include the mayor’s exceptions), and to take up the mayor’s exception requests during the upcoming budget hearings with the budget analyst’s detailed recommendations. No formal roll-call vote on the exceptions was recorded at the hearing; the exceptions will return for committee action after the scheduled reviews.