Productivity Committee Sherriff's Department Subcommittee Minutes 05/28/2009 a—05-
Sheriffs Dept sub productivity committee meeting May28, 2009 notes by Gina Downs
Attending were: Sheriff Rambosk, Chief Greg Smith, Chief Scott Salley, Stephanie
Spell, Captain Joe Bastys, Carol Golightly, Jean Meyers, Lorie Sands, Michelle Diaz
and Deb Chester. From productivity: Larry Magel, Janet Vasey, Joe Swaja, Gina
Downs
Sheriff Rambosk ran a power point.
Radios are sacred. Never consider cutting the radio fund.
If they keep the inmate level at 900, or at least under 1K, costs are reduced.
Inmate population is down mostly due to 287G program to remove criminals who are
illegal aliens. They are being removed through this program at 20-30 per week rate.
Have had a high of 39 removed in one week. If the inmate number goes back up to1050
or 1080, then dorms have to open in the Immokalee facility. Probably won't open the
entire facility, but will use it for bed space. Current head count is 995 inmates.
Plus, mental illness `inmates' or criminals are removed to appropriate facilities. Drug
programs need to care for druggies.
The department is also looking at how and if they can get a higher rating for this
facilities to increase their beds by 40 or 50. Immokalee has 180 beds. Would prefer to
NOT use Immokalee. Don't anticipate inmate number increasing until January, 2010.
Striving for real cost reductions and efficiency By Oct. 1, will have 107 unfilled
positions.
Voluntary early retirement option for 25 positions WILL result in $1,889,000 cost
reduction. Some of the health benefits paid out to today's early retirees must be
deducted from that $1.9 figure. $1.9 figure is anticipated to be met in three years when
it is estimated that a total of 25 will take early retirement.
How is early retirement promoted? Give them incentives which they say are relatively
small. Offer extended health care. A portion of accumulated sick leave may be paid to
early retirees. The net savings is $1.2 M a year.
How do you operate with 107 unfilled positions? Looked at functions performed and
rolled them in to existing positions, put positions together. When retirees were
supervisors or managers, that job level position was not filled.
Stressed that they take pains to NOT disrupt the organization or the community.
Programs that may not have been worthwhile are eliminated/reviewed for effectiveness.
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Sheriff showed his organization structure chart. Wanted a more direct impact to each
dept. Currently have NO undersheriff or chief deputy. Admin. Operational aspect, he
separated some because he wanted clear delineated lines of authority.
? from Larry Magel: Calls are down 9.25% Does the number of calls translate into the
number you need on the street? Answer: If enough residents leave Collier, staffing on
the street might go down.
? from Larry: What caused the drop in calls in 2008? Answer Sheriff Rambosk:
Construction trade left town. That removed a lot of their call volumn.
? from Janet Vasey: Appreciates reductions they have already achieved. FY09 actual
to FY 10, decrease is only about 1%. Is there something more than can be reduced?
Can you go down to at least 3% millage neutral?
Answer from Rambosk: Could have been 10 million higher. Feels he must address what
service levels are desired or expected of his department. Is willing to work with the
community and the commissioners. He needs specific dollar goal in order to evaluate
what and where he can reduce his budget.
Sheriff Rambosk left the meeting.
Chief Greg Smith says sheriff works closely with county manager Jim Mudd. Sheriff was
city manager with City of Naples before becoming sheriff. Understands budgets and
need for cuts. You can expect to see more transparency from his department.
Comments made about last year's decision by commissioners to spend turnback money
on limerock road paving and median plantings while simultaneously asking for cuts from
the sheriffs department.
Chief Scott Salley, and Captain Joe Bastys joined the meeting
Had the department taken a measure of what the savings would be with a one day
furlough? Yes, savings $301,900 in personnel costs only. Larry Magel asked: Is there a
compensatory time program? Greg Smith says No.
No salary promotions are planned. Larry Magel ?: What is the savings when new hire is
replacing employee who made higher wages. But, Greg Smith says no hiring is
planned for about 18 months,so it is a mute point.
17 people are in the drop program. Law enforcement gives 3% service credit.
Employer has to pay 20% of salary if NOT in drop program. 12% contribution rate if in
drop program. Says it is good deal for the employer with the 8% savings. Drop is a five
year program.
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Joe Swaja?: Why not take out of budget ALL funding for the 107 unfilled positions?
Answer: Because 85 positions will NOT be filled, so only those 85 positions are taken
out of budget.
Department currently has 1288 filled positions. Seven pending retirements will reduce
that to 1281.
Immokalee jail closing is temporary. Goal is to keep it closed until Jan 2010. Have a
skeleton crew out there. They will be mandated to reopen the jail if this one reaches
1040 or 1050. May need to open up 50+- beds In Immokalee. Can open lmmokalee jail
very quickly. Moved the Immokalee staff over to the Naples prison to fill the overtime
positions. Save about $7 K a day by eliminating overtime.
Across the state, there is a 3% reduction in inmate reduction. Collier rate is about 14%
How so? Criminal alien task force (287G) removes a lot of inmates fairly quickly. Plus,
feel they work well with judiciary. Been working the 287G program for about a year.
Inmate population is down 250-300 over a year ago.
? Janet: What crew is needed for opening 40-50 beds in lmmokalee. Would need to
send eight deputies per shift to house 80 to 100 prisoners. 19 workers are still in
Immokalee. They book arrests. Juveniles go to Immokalee for booking.
Is early release considered here? Answer is no. Greg Smith says weekend work
program helps to take minor offenders out of the jail. Have seeks alternatives to
incarceration. Most in jail are the `worst of the worst', otherwise they are often on
weekend programs. Started with 50 employees at Immokalee. Now have 12 vacancies.
26 were moved to Naples jail.
Janet?: If you opened up 128 beds at Immokalee you only need eight deputies? No,
need four to five officers to cover each post because of the 24/7 job coverage. Makeup
of the prison population dictates the needed number of guards. Difficult to give a firm
number. Gave example of sexual predator who can not be transported with groups of
prisoners — need another guard. Any contractor who comes on site to do a repair must
be accompanied by a guard.
Beds are also compartmentalized. Juvenile section might have x number of empty
beds, but you can't use them for other inmates. Ditto mentally imbalanced inmate
section cannot be housed with general population. While the Naples jail has 1200 beds,
they are often not filled because of the makeup of the prison population. State
mandated. Profiles, segregations are also set by the state.
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Mental health is now a huge problem for the jails. Many special requirements for these
types of prisoners. Assessment center is wanted by the community so, it needs to have
deputies. If juvenile in facility, two deputies need to be there. State leases the land
contingent upon having a juvenile assessment there. So, if you do away with the
assessment center, state funding will dry up? Will the facility have to abandon the
building?
Seeing second generation of prisoners, it is a family expectation. A right of passage.
? from Janet: Don't really need the employees who were transferred from the
Immokalee jail. If her numbers are right, Immokalee started with 50 employees and
now have five vacancies. Deduct the number who still work at the Immokalee facility,
and 24-26 remain who were transferred to the Naples jail. Yes, this employee shift
reduced overtime costs by 400 or 500 thousand. But those employees who were
retained and moved to the Naples jail are costing over $1 million in salary. OT went
down from 1.8 to 1.4, but salary is up. Janet says for the next six months, you don't
need those people. May need them in January, but don't know for sure.
Scott said he doesn't know the exact figures.
In defense of layoff and then hiring later: The department has the salary cost while the
new hire is in training then at RTO until they become a productive employee. Says we
are a training ground for law enforcement officers. They are prepared to transfer 15
guys from jail duty out to patrol duty. Able to do that now but may have to transfer them
back from patrol to jail.
Scott has 16 vacancies, 12 new graduates. The new graduates still require six to eight
more weeks before they can perform. He has no overtime now. But, also has no relief
factor. No bodies to call in to cover a sick day, etc. Must give up to 12 weeks per year
for paid medical issues because of FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act)
New employees step up in salary as training is completed. They encourage deputies to
learn to be bailiffs so they don't have to pay somebody else to come in for that duty.
Trying to cross train to gain efficiency. Nine just passed the state exam. Four of the
nine are gulf coast university graduates
Authorized allocated overtime. But says the reality is that the jail never operated within
that allocated overtime. Excess of OT per week over allotted WAS double that which
was allocated. $2.8 M OT has been reduced. In 2007, the actual OT was $3.8M.
Page 6. Drop in calls in 08? Greg Smith: Several factors. NOT having hurricanes or
severe storms helped to lower those numbers
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Page 11. Buyout of 33 employees. Have only done 25 so far. Cost $1M to buy them
out Accumulated vacation, and a percentage of sick time, up to 500 vacation hours.
Page 17. 30 people hired during first part of 09.
Page 26. One less bailiff
Page 27. Budget in 2009 for auto insurance was 38.1 Projected 26.2 for 2010. Why?
2008 was 26.7 Get estimates for auto insurance. Have 100 fewer vehicles this year.
Most is liability. Car is pooled and workers comp is pooled through state sheriffs
insurance pool funds. Larry Magel asked if they compare insurance rates with the
county insurance pool. They will check with county on their price to cover auto
insurance for the sheriffs department.
Mentioned that they lose about 20 cars in a hurricane due to flooding.
Joe asked is there an attempt to consolidate for economies of scale with purchases etc.
through the county. Greg Smith says they do some with IT services
Jail medical contract has gone up to 6 million dollars. Looking for some cost sharing,
risk sharing. They don't have all the estimates back yet. Trying to get that 6 million
down. Inmate health care.and also dental is mandated by state.
What would be the impact of a 10% Reduction? No answer given.
What is 3% millage neutral budget going to look like?
What would you cut to get to $8 M reduction? Salary reductions, furloughs.
Larry: What about defer, postpone equipment replacement. Greg Smith agrees maybe
staged replacement should be looked at.
Janet suggests a budget that shows $8Million reduction. Can the department determine
what is essential above a millage neutral?
Fee schedules are decreasing. Collections are dropping. You can charge, but you
can't necessarily collect.
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