Sheriff-city contract rates go up 7%

The cost of protecting some valley communities is going up. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is raising fees for local cities that already have tight budgets.

“Whatever we spend in the community all we are recouping is our exact cost to do business in that community,” said Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff.

That cost is going up 7 percent this year, and another 7 to 8 percent next year, depending on what the Riverside County Board of Supervisors decides, for the same level of service.

“When you compound that with the previous year and the year before that, we have increased our police budget by $1 million over a two year period and that hurts the city considerably,” said Rancho Mirage Mayor Dana Hobart.

The sheriff’s department is the law enforcement agency of Riverside County. It’s also the police department for five valley cities: Coachella, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert, and Rancho Mirage.

“It’s much more cost effective because there is no profit or margin and the county absorbs the liability of the actions of the officers that are involved in each of these communities,” said Sniff.

Sniff says 90 percent of the fee increase is labor costs.

“Just as in the private business community where the minimum wage sets the cost of their labor, in our case the Board of Supervisors does that through agreements for labor groups,” said Sniff.

This year, both Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage can absorb the increase, but that won’t be the case in the future.

“It definitely can’t be sustained in the long run without us having to cut services for our people,” said Hobart.

“It’s a better deal we think than if we had our own police force, we would just like to be able to keep that level of service,” said Palm Desert City Manager John Wohlmuth.

It’s not just law enforcement, Palm Desert is also absorbing an 11 percent increase for county fire services.

“This is the first year in the history of Palm Desert public safety costs exceed half of our total budget,” said Wohlmuth.

“My hope is we find a solution. We have to because it is a good system,” said Hobart.

The Board of Supervisors indicated last week that they are gonna be very restrained in future union negotiations after next year.