Sheriff’s $2.7M deficit prompts Ramsey County board to consider new financial controls

Nick Woltman, Pioneer Press
·5 min read

The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday will consider imposing increased financial oversight on the sheriff’s office after it reported a surprise budget deficit of roughly $2.7 million for fiscal year 2022.

A proposal by County Manager Ryan O’Connor would create a raft of new restrictions on Sheriff Bob Fletcher’s spending authority, forcing his agency to undergo a monthly audit and transferring some of its functions and powers to the board itself and other county offices, according to the posted agenda for the next board meeting.

The board will also vote on authorizing county officials to cover the $2.7 million deficit with money from the general fund.

In a Feb. 3 memo to Ramsey County Chief Financial Officer Alexandra Kotze, Undersheriff Kyle Mestad said the cost overruns were largely the result of understaffing and overcrowding at the county jail, which forced the sheriff’s office to rely heavily on overtime to operate the facility.

That said, the county documents show the sheriff exceeded his budget in virtually every major line-item, from janitorial services that totaled $146,000 for the year, or three times the $45,000 budgeted, to food service, which totaled $1.3 million, or nearly double the $700,000 budgeted.

Anticipated overtime budgets were especially off when it came to court security, medical transports and civil processes. Combined, those three areas went overbudget by about $535,000. Overall, overtime salaries and temporary salaries were off by more than $1 million.

Out of nine divisions within the sheriff’s office, from administrative services to jail operations, the only personnel area where overtime spending did not go overbudget was Community Services.

Pandemic-related expenditures, labor contracts and assuring public safety downtown during the federal trials of three Minneapolis police officers convicted in the death of George Floyd added about $359,000 in unbudgeted expenses, according to the sheriff’s office.

Extent of deficit undisclosed

Although county officials had been in communication with Fletcher’s office about its budget throughout the year, O’Connor told commissioners at the board’s Feb. 7 meeting that Mestad’s memo was the first time his office had been informed of the extent of the deficit, which amounts to about 5.5% of the portion of the sheriff’s budget maintained by the taxpayer-supported county levy.

Back in June, the projected deficit was less than $387,000.

“Over the course of multiple budget monitoring meetings, the anticipated $2.7 million deficit was never disclosed,” Kotze said in an emailed statement. “Projections ranged from a deficit of approximately $375,000 to $1.3 million, with assurances that it would be partially offset with other revenues, as happened in prior years. Unfortunately, the magnitude of the $2.7 million deficit impacts the fiscal year end close for the entire county and, more importantly, the taxpayers of Ramsey County.”

The sheriff’s office was approved last year for an operating budget of $64.36 million, of which $47.6 million was funded by county taxpayers through the property tax levy.

Fletcher raised concerns about overcrowding in the Ramsey County jail last fall. He pointed to several contributing factors, including a state court backlog caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in the number of inmates being held on murder or attempted murder charges, and an increase in the number of people awaiting court-ordered evaluations for mental illness.

Earlier this month, the Minnesota Department of Corrections, which licenses the jail, ordered Fletcher to reduce the inmate headcount by dozens. A DOC inspection found that staffing at the facility was adequate for only 324 people, and that its population of roughly 380 caused “an imminent risk of life-threatening harm or serious injury to individuals within the facility.”

In a letter summarizing its findings, the DOC said the jail had failed to take inmates to the hospital for emergency medical care, which is a violation of a state rule governing the operations of the facility.

New controls

The county manager on Tuesday will recommend that the county board insist on six permanent budget controls before greenlighting a $2.7 million budget fix for the sheriff’s office. The six steps include:

  • All major contracts advertised through a request for proposals from the sheriff’s office would have to be presented first to the county board for approval.

  • Assistants focused on personnel benefits and transactions would be transferred from the sheriff’s office to the county’s Human Resources department.

  • The county’s chief finance officer would play a larger role in reviewing and approving outside contracts.

  • The county’s financial services would conduct “enhanced reviews” of all of the sheriff department’s procurement cards and purchase orders.

  • A third-party auditor would review all of the sheriff’s budgetary line items monthly and report back to the county manager, as well as to the county’s Compliance and Ethics department and the county’s Audit Committee.

  • The sheriff’s office would be subject to a review and approval process aimed at ensuring consistency in following the county’s hiring rules, policies and procedures.

Mestad’s Feb. 3 memo raises additional questions of the county board, including how the county should budget for vacant employee positions during a national labor shortage. He said the county has insisted on reducing the personnel budget, instead of redirecting savings there to prop up budgets for overtime and temporary salaries.

“While we do not agree on this topic, I wanted to note that in 2022, the vacancy factor was increased to $1.16 (million),” Mestad wrote. “This resulted in a reduction to personnel funding.”

The sheriff’s office also noted that providing law enforcement and security services at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in 2021 and through June 30, 2022 had brought in some net revenue, as did providing mutual aid for the 2022 State Fair. As a result, there’s about $119,000 of unused revenue in his office’s State Fair project account that could be applied to the 2022 budget.

Staff writer Frederick Melo contributed to this report.

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