Riverside County departments overspending despite budget woes

Some Riverside County government offices are overspending, at a time when they’re supposed to be cutting back. KPCC’s Steven Cuevas says just a couple months into the new fiscal year, more than a dozen county departments may be drifting into the red.

Steven Cuevas: Executive officer Bill Luna says he’s watching the county’s 57 departments closely. Just two months into the county’s new budget year, Luna says 13 departments aren’t showing the fiscal discipline he’d hoped. That includes the district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department – the county’s biggest spenders.

Here’s an example: Luna says cash strapped cities that contract with the Sheriff’s Department are scaling back on services. That directly impacts the amount of money flowing into the county’s general fund.

Bill Luna: It is unavoidable now that contact cities will reduce service. They take deputies down, there’s a line of people behind that deputy that supports them. And that budget needs to be rebalanced to the new level of personnel that it can support. And that’s something the sheriff needs to manage.

Cuevas: The Sheriff’s Department and DA’s office are under especially close scrutiny after resisting budget cuts that other departments took voluntarily. The two departments combined came out of the last fiscal year around $6 million in the red.

The county as a whole did a lot better. It climbed out with a $60 million surplus. But officials worry that money could be chewed away by state budget cuts next year.