San Diego Sheriff Contract Cities

Nine Cities in San Diego County contract with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department for additional ‘police services’. The Contract Cities are Del Mar, Encinitas, Imperial Beach, Lemon Grove, Poway, San Marcus, Santee, Solana Beach, and Vista.

On June 20, 2017, the San Diego Board of Supervisors Approved the latest five-year Sheriff’s Contract with the nine Cities. Every Contract City was told that ‘someone’ was representing the Contract Cities, it just wasn’t ‘their’ City Manager, but the statements to the Contract Cities were Fraud, an intentional lie.

The County identified the four men that developed the Sheriff’s charges to the Contract Cities as the Sheriff Department’s Contracts Manager Keith Spears, Assistant Sheriff Michael R. Barnett, Deputy Sheriff Dale Griffin, and Senior Deputy County Counsel Mark Day. The basis of Contract Law is that there is no contract without consideration. The Sheriff’s Contracts with the Cities are invalid because the Cities were not allowed representation, but a bigger problem is how the Sheriff’s Department is illegally misusing the Contract Cities’ $110 million.

In 2019 the Sheriff’s Department collected a total of $110,480,845.67 from the nine Contract Cities. Some of the Contract Cities have questioned the Sheriff’s charges to their City, but the Sheriff has refused any requests for information. In July, 2020, the City of Imperial Beach established a Committee and formally requested the Sheriff’s Call Logs and other information, but the Sheriff refused to release any information to the City’s Staff or Councilmen.

SHERIFF SUBSTATIONS:

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department has 21 Substations located throughout the County: 45 Ranch, Alpine, Borrego Springs, Boulevard, Campo, Dulzura, Fallbrook, Imperial Beach, Julian, Lakeside, Lemon Grove, North Coastal, Pine Valley, Poway, Romana, Ranchita, Rancho San Diego, San Marcos, Santee, Valley Center, and Vista.

Aside from the $110 Million collected from the Contract Cities; every Contract City also pays Property Taxes, which are, in part, allocated to pay for Sheriff Services, but the Contract Cities are not given any credit for property taxes paid toward Sheriff Services.

Imperial Beach has a population of 27,500. The Imperial Beach Substation serves Imperial Beach along with Bonita, Lincoln Acres, the Otay area. Imperial Beach is paying $8 million/year for the Sheriff’s Contract plus $2.5 million in Property Taxes for what nobody knows because the Sheriff either keeps no records or refuses to release documents proving their work. Sheriff Payroll allocated to the Imperial Beach Substation averages $665,000/month.

In contrast; Fallbrook has a population of 31,000 and pays Property Taxes, but no additional money for Sheriff Services. The Fallbrook Substation serves Fallbrook, Bonsall, Rainbow, and De Luz. The Fallbrook Substation averages $605,000/month in Sheriff Payroll costs.

The incorporation or un-incorporation of an area has no relevance to Sheriff Fees. If the Fallbrook substation can operate on basic property taxes, then all Sheriff Substations should be able to operate on basic property taxes.

The North Coastal Substation includes Encinitas, Solana Beach and Del Mar, which are all Contract Cities that also pay high property taxes. The Sheriff’s Contract charges Del Mar $2.65 million, Encinitas $16.5 million, and Solana Beach $4.6 Million for a total of almost $24 million before property taxes. North Coastal Substation Payroll averages $1.5 million/month, but the Sheriff can not produce a Work Schedule, Call Log, Event Report, or an records to show there is any service to the community.

It appears that the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department created Service Contracts based on the money the Sheriff’s Department wanted, not on the money needed to serve the Contract Cities, which is an illegal use of Taxpayers’ Money.

California Government Code 51350 states: “A county shall not charge a city contracting for a particular service, either as a direct or an indirect overhead charge, any portion of those costs which are attributable to services made available to all portions of the county, as determined by resolution of the board of supervisors, or which are general overhead costs of operation of the county government.”

The San Diego County Sheriff Department’s refusal to release records is a violation of California’s Public Records’ Laws and an admission that the Sheriff’s Department is fully aware that the services provided to the Contract Cities do not equate the money charged. But it does not answer the question of how the Contract Cities’ money is being spent, so I requested the Sheriff’s Department General Ledger for Fiscal Year running from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020 from the County.

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department received $474,679,791.69 in Revenue and spent $917,160,274.22, which almost twice as much expenses as revenue. Expenses charged to the Contract Cities are mostly plugged numbers and do not add up to a fraction of the amount the County is charging the Contract Cities for expenses.

Over $700,000 million of the Sheriff’s expenses pay for Employee Wages and Benefits. Last year alone over $345 million paid in Salaries, $51.5 million was paid in Overtime, almost $44 million paid for ‘Flex Credit’, and over $200 million in Pension Debt. The County allocates over $23 million in Pension Bond Debt to the Sheriff’s Department.

‘Public Liability’ expense for the San Diego Sheriff’s Department is $16 million, which seems very high considering the Sheriff’s Department should be covered under the County’s Liability Insurance, but the Sheriff may require their own Liability Insurance to cover its multiple Detention Centers.

San Diego County has seven (7) Adult Detention Centers: East Mesa, Facility 8, George Bailey, Las Colinas, South Bay, San Diego Central, and Vista. There are also three (3) Juvenile Detention Centers: Kearny Mesa, East Mesa, and Urban Camp.

San Diego County Financial Statements state that in fiscal year 2019/2020 the Sheriff spent over $315 million on ‘Adult Detention’ and over $151 million on ‘Detention and Correction’. Over $45 million was spent on ‘Juvenile Detention’ and another $5 million on ‘Detention and Correction’, which must be a nice way of saying ‘child jails’.

In Fiscal Year 2019/2020 the San Diego Sheriff spent $30 million in ‘Medical Services’; $4.5 million on ‘Medicines, Drugs & Pharmaceuticals’; and $12 million on ‘Food’. Imperial Beach was charged over $3,000/month for ‘Medical and Psychiatric Exams’ that should have been allocated to the jail system.

The San Diego County Sheriff is William D. Gore, the former FBI agent that led the assault on Ruby Ridge. When Gore had to slither out of the FBI, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors gifted Gore the job title of San Diego County Sheriff on July 3, 2009.

Over the past decade Gore has gained the reputation among Citizens and Journalists of predatory practices and ignoring State Laws. The California Public Records’ Act also requires the retainment of Public Records, but Gore has not only refused to release Public Records, but up until July, 2020, Gore as destroyed all Public Records and Public Records’ Requests, which is Illegal in the State of California.

I am requesting the San Diego County Grand Jury to investigate the San Diego County Sheriff Department:

1. The nine Contract Cities’ Costs and what should be the corresponding Service provided by the Sheriff’s Department.

2. Violation of Public Records’ Act including, but not limited William Gore’s Failure to Create & Retain Public Records from 2009 until July of 2020, Refusal to Release Public Records, and the willful Destruction of Public Records and Public Records’ Requests.

City of Imperial Beach Examination of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Operations: https://imperialbeachca-my.sharepoint.com/personal/communications_imper…