On Tuesday, Oct. 2, the Lake County Board of Supervisors approved a new memorandum of understanding with the Lake County Deputy Sheriff’s Association.

The DSA had been out of contract and attempting to negotiate better compensation since January of 2018 until this agreement. While the agreement provided two days of personal leave for each DSA member, the new contract did not provide an increase in wages or health care benefits.

Recently the Lake County Sheriff’s Office implemented a new online reporting system in an effort to maintain the ability to provide essential services to the citizens of Lake County, as the sheriff’s office is facing a critical staffing crisis.

The DSA fully supports Sheriff Martin and his efforts to maintain adequate service to the public, while attempting to balance officer safety. Members of the DSA feel that the magnitude of this staffing crisis is not fully understood by the public and is being underprioritized by the Board of Supervisors, despite the fact that Sheriff Martin and Undersheriff Macedo have frequently voiced the problem.

The sheriff’s office is currently operating at around a 30-percent vacancy rate. To put that in other terms, we are fielding a baseball team with no outfielders. Patrol staffing levels have fallen to three deputies or less on most shifts. That is half of the deputies that a shift has traditionally carried despite calls for service nearly doubling within the past ten years. The sheriff’s office is operating at similar staffing levels as did in the 1970s.

Some of the staffing issues in the patrol division of the sheriff’s office, which is staffed with DSA members, is caused by the fact that the sheriff’s office is mandated by law to perform certain functions. Those functions include staffing a correctional facility, a civil division, court security, and search and rescue to name a few.

Having a patrol division and handling calls for service is not one of the mandated functions of the sheriff’s office, but one that is imperative to provide protection to the public. As the ability to recruit and retain deputies, correctional staff and dispatchers is at an extreme low, the patrol division’s ability to respond to calls for service suffers, because of the lack of personnel.

To put it bluntly, citizens of this county will have extended response times, or in some cases no response at all, when they request a deputy for assistance.

The main reason the sheriff’s office is unable to recruit or retain employees is compensation, specifically, health care benefits. While the cost of health care has increased dramatically over the past 15 years, the county contribution towards health care has not increased at all.

The out-of-pocket cost of insurance for a DSA member, their spouse and a child is $1,417. With local law enforcement agencies offering a similar salary and much better health care contributions, allowing their officers to bring home almost $1,000 more a month in their paycheck, it makes it difficult for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office to recruit and retain good employees.

The DSA has recently learned that the county of Lake is proposing a modest increase to their contribution towards health care costs, however that modest increase is inadequate to remedy the staffing crisis that we are facing.

The time is long past due for the county of Lake to address its ability to recruit and retain law enforcement professionals. The county of Lake’s Board of Supervisors need to make the staffing issues at the sheriff’s office a priority, as it is imperative to providing public safety services.

John Drewrey is president of the Lake County Deputy Sheriff’s Association serving Lake County, Calif.