Dallas County slashing public safety budgets while $48 million rainy day fund sits idle

by Scott Henson of Grits For Breakfast

If Dallas County can't afford to hire enough public defenders to keep caseloads reasonable or pay enough staff to guard the jail, why does the Commissioners Court have more than $48 million in a rainy day fun they're refusing to spend? According to the Dallas Morning News ("Dallas County likes to keep its fat reserve," Sept. 8):

During the height of the budget crisis in May, the county was sitting on $31 million in reserves. And when commissioners approve a 2008-09 budget in less than two weeks, that surplus in the General Fund will jump to at least $48 million – for day-to-day operations alone.

Additional reserves are available in other accounts that pay for major expenses like buildings, roads and technology upgrades.

The reserves – equal to 10.5 percent of the budget, by policy – are meant for unanticipated emergencies.

But they haven't been tapped for as long as anyone can recall. Not for an economic downturn; not for any emergency.

This blog has focused on changes at the public defender's office, where the commissioners court recently imposed ridiculously high caseloads that caused several felony defenders to resign. But at the Sheriff's office the hiring freeze is exacerbating their ongoing guard shortage and and contributing to the jail overcrowding crisis:

Allen Clemson, the Commissioners Court administrator, said reserves weren't needed because no social or other major services were cut this year.

"We didn't make any rash budget cuts," he said.

Sheriff's Department labor groups, however, take issue with that.

Sgt. Greg Porter, chairman of the Dallas County Sheriff's Association, says commissioners are hoarding excessive surpluses while law enforcement positions are being frozen and cut. He said a tax increase may be needed to keep services intact.

"At some point, something's got to give," he said.

Reduced jail staffing at a time when the county is losing civil suits over failing to provide adequate healthcare is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

News of the surplus affirms my sense that the Dallas County budget crisis is a manufactured event clouding some alternative agenda I don't understand. County commissioners initially created the crisis by announcing they wouldn't raise taxes no matter what, then refused to dip into their rainy day fund and insisted on slashing staff instead.

Gutting the public defender office and freezing new hires at the jail are mere on-paper fixes that boost actual real-world costs. With fewer public defenders, more expensive private attorneys will take more cases, running up costs. And understaffing the jail requires making up the difference with overtime, further starving the jail budget when just hiring more staff would be cheaper.

The Commissioners Court wants to portray themselves as fiscal conservatives, but this behavior constitutes pure fiscal foolishness.