TEHAMA COUNTY, Calif. - Tensions are high in Tehama County, as employees who work at the sheriff’s office are still without a contract.
As Action News Now previously reported, during Tuesday's board of supervisors meeting, the Deputy Sheriff's Association and Law Enforcement Management Association voiced frustrations about the stalled contract negotiations.
Group representatives expressed a vote of no confidence in Chief Administrator Gabriel Hydrick and other county leaders.
In a statement Hydrick provided to Action News Now earlier this week, Hydrick made a lot of claims about how much money the sheriff's office has to work with.
Here is the full statement Hydrick provided us on May 21:
"Again, the Sheriff says their budget was cut; this is fundamentally not accurate. Their budget was increased by about $1 million. Further, they had extended time and a handful more chances for resolving their budget last year that no other department was offered prior to the Budget Ad Hoc being put into a position to make a decision to meet the budget deadline. The Sheriff Department was provided a 50% reduction by me in their insurance tail claim expenditures last year, another benefit not offered to any other department. The problem is we cannot meet their desires, that are millions above what the county can afford. Over the last two years, the Sheriff department has enjoyed incredibly robust and generous expenditures that other departments have not enjoyed, including, but not limited to (General Fund and grant-funded): a helicopter program (~$574,000 spent to date)*, 20 new vehicles, almost a quarter million dollars in new furniture, new jail expansion, new parking lot*, new carpet* (~13,000 square feet, enough to carpet 6 homes of 2,200 square feet), new HVAC, new LED lighting, solar arrays, new landscape, improvements to the morgue, coroner equipment, hiring of a family member, sending a family member to the academy, and reviving the K9 program. This does not include the numerous positions I and the Personnel Director have approved at their request. The Sheriff Department has received unwavering support for their desired programs and personnel changes."
“By putting out that information when it’s inaccurate, it causes distrust in the public, and the sheriff’s office is not interested in that. We’ve had multiple town hall meetings; we are transparent on our social media; we’re transparent on what we’re doing. We want to make sure that we have the public's trust and ensure that,” Sheriff Dave Kain said.
Hydrick's statement about the sheriff's office spending detailed a lot of money toward the new carpet, an HVAC system and new vehicles.
Kain responded to Hydrick’s statement with the following statement on May 23:
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But Kain said the Sheriff’s Department had to buy new cars like these because some of their vehicles are over 20 years old.
Kain said the county purchased 20 new police vehicles, but just eight of them were paid for through the county's general fund, the rest through grants and the Rural Sheriff's discretionary funds.
Kain said even though the county increased its budget by a million dollars last year, he's still coming up short, and it puts public safety at risk.
“As a result, last year, based on the budget cuts and reductions, many of our positions that we had in the jail were left on funded as a fact of that, and not having adequate staffing, the state requires a certain level of staffing ratio per inmates in the jail, so we’re currently at about 50% population in the jail,” Kain said.
Action News Now reached out to Hydrick to get his take on the sheriff's claims today.
Here is Hydrick’s response to the claims today:
“Only detractors are enthralled with predictable sleeper sequels of recycled plots and characters to target and eliminate two county administrators in essentially as many years. That's what this all boils down to, again. It is of no benefit to any party, including the public, to continue this way publicly; I have already shared my response on the interest for a vote of no confidence and the other commentary. Interested parties have county budgets, policies, and other documents available for their own review and conclusion, and so my public response on this topic concludes here, even if this is drawn out or heats up.”
Kain said that with the state of the economy, the Sheriff’s Department saw a 3.5 million dollar increase in their operating costs.
