Sacramento County used most of its federal coronavirus funding to pay sheriff’s payroll
Sacramento County has spent the vast majority of its federal coronavirus relief funds so far towards covering its Sheriff’s Office payroll, and the salaries and benefits of other public safety officers.
As part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act signed in March, Sacramento County received $181 million to fund necessary programs or expenses tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, or to pay for new expenses that have come up or were not planned for in the budget.
Of the nearly $148 million that the county has already spent in the last few months, more than $104 million went toward paying for salaries and benefits in the Sheriff’s Office, according to a county staff report. Another nearly $21.5 million and about $1.8 million went to the payroll and benefits of probation officers and park rangers, respectively.
The county spent less than 3% of the federal money during the last fiscal year toward public health and medical expenses. About $4 million went toward buying more personal protective equipment such as masks and hand sanitizer.
Just under $10,000 went toward contact-tracing efforts — a critical means of tracking and containing the spread of the virus that California still struggles with.
CARES Act funding cannot be used to backfill revenue losses in general funds, or pay for normal payroll costs. But the U.S. Treasury guidance allows local governments to use the money to cover the salaries and benefits of public safety and health workers “whose services are substantially dedicated to mitigating or responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
How does a law enforcement agency, for example, prove that its services are now “substantially dedicated” to addressing the pandemic?
It doesn’t have to.
The U.S. Treasury put out an FAQ stating in part “as a matter of administrative convenience,” a local government can assume all public health, law enforcement and public safety worker expenses are covered, unless the local government’s chief executive decides otherwise.
Sacramento County Chief Fiscal Officer Britt Ferguson said the county used this guidance to justify funneling the majority of its relief funds to the Sheriff’s Office, Probation Department and park rangers during the last fiscal year. Doing so, he said, allowed Sacramento County to avoid “massive budget cuts.”
“How do we free up as much money as possible to ... allow us to deal with $170 million in reduction in various revenue sources between 2019-20, and 2020-21?” Ferguson said.
The Board of Supervisors gave county executive Nav Gill authority to allocate the CARES Act funding and will review the spending thus far during its meeting Tuesday.
Some local governments have opted to use the CARES Act funding as a way to provide direct financial help to residents during the coronavirus pandemic. The city of Sacramento, for example, used part of it to create economic relief funds for small businesses. The city of Los Angeles paid for its $103 million renter relief program primarily with the federal dollars.
As to whether Sacramento County considered funding similar COVID-19 relief programs for residents, Ferguson said “not so much.”
“Most of the (CARES Act-funded) services directly benefit the public whether it’s sheriff patrols or CPS,” Ferguson said. “We think those are pretty critical programs provided to the public, and maintaining those services was an important priority for us ... versus a substantial amount towards new initiatives.”
Sacramento County has already begun spending the remaining roughly $33 million in federal relief funds for this fiscal year, but Ferguson could not specify which programs or departments were being funded.
He said the county is putting about $14.3 million towards the public health department’s testing and contact tracing efforts. The rest will continue to fund the payroll of certain county employees to free up the general fund.
