Sheriff Puts Threat on Hold

Reversing a decision announced less than 24 hours earlier, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on Thursday backed off from his threat to start releasing 400 inmates accused of misdemeanors as a budget-cutting measure.

“I will suspend this ... so we can have an opportunity to continue to listen to the critics,” Baca announced, responding to a storm of objections that greeted his earlier decision.

“I am looking for ways not to have to do this,” Baca said.

The uproar came from judges, prosecutors and county supervisors Wednesday after Baca said that $100 million in impending cuts in his $1.6-billion budget would force him to make major reductions.

The threatened release applies to inmates with bail under $25,000 who are not charged with felonies or violent misdemeanors.

It would apply only to those awaiting trial, not to inmates already convicted, and would have begun today.

Baca’s threat prompted Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo to say that they would instruct their deputies to seek higher bails to avoid the releases. It also triggered critics in county government and a union, who said Baca could close the budget gap without the use of mass releases.

Baca announced that no releases will take place before July 1. He said the delay will provide more time to find other ways to solve his budget problems.

Although his verbal sparring with county supervisors continued Thursday, Baca’s decision brought some relief.

“We are very grateful for that,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Dan T. Oki, who supervises criminal courts, said Thursday.

Delgadillo pledged to “do all I can to make sure this policy doesn’t go into effect.”

Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Braithwaite Burke called Baca’s reversal “good news.” But they said his budget problems are his own doing.

Baca denied that, saying that he has no choice but to release inmates because the jails are underfunded by about $25 million. Reducing the number of inmates by 400 would save about $5 million, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

In addition to the releases, Baca said, he will be forced to close the 2,000-inmate Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, which houses 1,600 people. The inmates at Century would be moved to other facilities, and the space shortage caused by the closure would be met by releasing new arrestees.

The sheriff issued a challenge in rejecting claims that he could balance his budget without releasing prisoners.

“I welcome anyone inside government or in the private sector to come in and show me where the cuts are in view of the fact that I am already taking a $100-million cut.

“The board has two more weeks to decide to restore the funds. I hope they do so; if they do, the release will not be necessary.”

The sheriff said he would welcome an analysis of his budget by independent auditors, as well as a public referendum on whether more county funding should go to the Sheriff’s Department.

The department’s $1.6-billion budget includes $648 million from the county, Baca said. The jail population is about 20,000 inmates.

At a later news conference, Burke and Yaroslavsky charged that Baca has not worked hard enough to save money and questioned his math.

They said Baca’s budget is being increased by $21 million, and acknowledged that level will still create a $50-million shortfall in funding his programs.

The state economic slowdown took a $205-million chunk out of the county budget, which is projected to be $16.2 billion next year.

Some proposed cuts would come from service reductions in a number of areas, including closing a juvenile camp, increasing caseloads for officers supervising juvenile probationers, ending the district attorney’s environmental crimes and sex crimes units, and cutting library hours or closing branches.

“The reality is that [Baca] needs to stand up to the plate just as we are,” Burke said.

Yaroslavsky agreed. “In a budget of $1.6 billion you can find ways to cut costs and increase efficiencies,” he said. “I simply hope that the last 24 hours will be a lesson that we need to put the people first.”

Yaroslavsky said supervisors face “what may be the worst budgetary cycle that this county has faced in a generation.”

He said county officials want to know how much money Baca has spent on new programs during the current fiscal year, such as plans for a homeless facility near Twin Towers Correctional Facility and a training program for upper-management.

Yaroslavsky said he needed the information “in order for us to do our job” and make informed suggestions on where the sheriff can make his cuts.

“We’d like to know what has happened to the money we have appropriated.”

Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for a coalition of unions representing thousands of staffers in Baca’s department, said Thursday that her organization has suggested several options, other than prisoner releases, to save money.

She said the Sheriff’s Department could reduce expenses on vehicles used by civilians and could suspend the hiring of new executives in the department.

Sharon R. Harper, an official in the county chief administrative officer’s office, cited more than $10 million in savings that she said Baca could realize in a fund for new equipment, such as cars and photocopiers.

Baca would not have been the first Los Angeles County sheriff to release prisoners.

In March 1995, then-Sheriff Sherman Block announced the release of about 3,000 inmates because of budget constraints.

Those inmates were serving sentences for misdemeanors and “low-grade” felonies such as burglary. Block repeatedly had threatened to make early releases and to close jails during budget skirmishes with the Board of Supervisors.