As you continue to read the expose’ we are doing on Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff, there is an emerging pattern:
- Blame the Riverside County Board of Supervisors
- Blame the rank and file desputies
- Shutter Jail space over budget cuts
- Blame budget cuts for everything he has failed to deliver
- Resist any and all help (that was not his own idea) to be more efficient with the money.
Nowhere is this failure of leadership on display more than with the current budget drama in Riverside County. After going 15 rounds with the county board of supervisors, Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff’s department is set to violate their budget by over $9 Million!
If you’ve been tracking, Sniff had an argument during a public hearing related to an accounting audit / recommendations to address some of the budget issues. Similar to his passive-aggressive stuffing of the issuance of CCW permits, Mr. Sniff appears to have gone off and done things “his way” all over again.
Sheriff’s officials anticipated a $9.3 million overrun, which may swell, while the D.A.’s office is contending with a $5 million overage, and the public defender’s office is working to find ways of containing a $2.2 million deficit, county officials said.
Ouch. Riverside County deserves better than this.
Then you have this snippet which shows the mindset of the Sheriff:
“(KPMG’s) cost-saving measures are essential to maintaining service levels while containing ongoing spending,” Johnson wrote.
Critics, including Sheriff Stan Sniff and Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, have cast doubts that the vaunted savings will materialize.
So, rather than accept the fact that the recommendations of KPMG may save a lot of money, Mr. Sniff saddles up on some minor points to disregard the entire thing. This seems like trying to debate where you can be right on 19 out of 20 points and your opponent (sniff) will saddle up on the one point in an attempt to invalidate the other 19.
Riverside County deserves better than this.
One of the biggest cost drivers over the next year will be the phased opening of the John J. Benoit Detention Center in Indio, according to the report. The $333 million facility will eventually be able to house 1,600 inmates. But it remains unclear how the county will staff it as the sheriff struggles to find the money to replace deputies for patrol operations in unincorporated communities.
One thing is guaranteed, unless it is Stan Sniff’s idea to figure out how to staff that jail, he will fight it tooth and nail. I am not optomistic that Riverside County will get their jail staffed based on what I have learned about the Sheriff.
Riverside County deserves better than this.
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I am a wife of a deputy who works at the Indio Jail. So help me to GOD, if anything happens to my husband during this budget fiasco, Sniff and all his cronies are looking at a huge lawsuit, both persoanlly and as RSO. This is all THEIR fault!!!!