Stanislaus County will need to hire 100-plus deputies for jail expansion

Stanislaus County is nearing completion of a 552-bed expansion of the Public Safety Center on Hackett Road and finally has a plan for staffing the facility when it opens in March 2017.

The Sheriff’s Department won’t open the lockup all at once but plans to hire 32 deputies and transfer 22 current personnel for what it calls a “soft opening” next year. The 120 maximum-security beds activated the first year will cost the county more than $5 million for salaries, supplies, meals and medical services.

County supervisors approved the staffing strategy Tuesday evening and authorized $650,000 from year-end savings to purchase supplies and equipment for the new jail facilities.

“This is going to be need-driven,” county Chief Executive Officer Stan Risen said. “We have a game plan in place where if the need dictates filling it up, we have identified the resources.”

The construction funding from the state requires the county to open part of the facility within 90 days of finishing the project. The $89.5 million project, including 480 maximum-security beds and a 72-bed medical and mental health wing, is more than 80 percent completed and should be finished in January.

The county’s plan for opening the facility in phases calls for adding 47 deputies for the second year to manage a total of 240 jail beds, plus a booking operation and 57 medical services beds. That would push annual operating costs to $12.5 million.

When fully occupied, in 2019 or later, the jail facility will require 112 new positions and cost $18.1 million in annual expenses, staff members said.

The county negotiated a 12-hour shift model with the custodial deputies union that reduces the number of positions required.

The expansion of the Hackett Road complex will fill a long-standing need for jail space, provide more local cells as fewer offenders are sent to state prison, and ultimately lead to closing the old county jail at 12th and H streets in Modesto. With statewide public safety realignment in 2011, the county is responsible for lower-level offenders that were previously sent to state prison.

The county received $80 million in state funding for building the maximum-security lockup and has another $40 million from the state for a 288-bed re-entry center that’s more in tune with realignment goals. The re-entry center, which is being designed, will have program facilities for rehabilitating inmates.

“Our (jail) population has changed, so we now have long-term high-security inmates who have mental illness and don’t have access to mental health programs,” said sheriff’s Capt. Bill Duncan, commander of adult detention.

A major question has been how to pay for staffing and operation of the incarceration facilities. The county applied for the construction money in the middle of the last budget crisis.

Risen said the county has cobbled together funding sources, including Assembly Bill 109 realignment funds, money freed up by retiring county debt, and $1.8 million from a reduction in the local match for social services.

Officials did not identify how the county would cover $18 million in annual costs, at full capacity, but county leaders are working on long-term budgeting and can decide how many jail beds to activate with the annual budget review. “I don’t think we need 480 beds today, but we will,” Supervisor Vito Chiesa said.

The county will negotiate with the California Forensic Medical Group to provide health services for inmates. The medical group is the health care provider in the county’s adult detention facilities.

If the expansion is fully occupied, the costs for medical services for inmates are roughly estimated at $1.8 million, but the actual amount will depend on the outcome of negotiations with California Forensic.

Between July and January, the Sheriff’s Department will recruit sworn personnel including a lieutenant, six sergeants and 25 deputies for opening the first phase. Applicants are screened for the minimum qualifications and, for a two-month period, are put through physical agility tests, written and oral exams and interviews.

According to a staff report, successful candidates are subject to a rigorous background investigation, including psychological and medical examinations and a computer voice stress analysis, which has replaced polygraph exams in some law enforcement agencies.

The recruits that are offered a job will be assigned to six weeks of academy training, followed by nine weeks of on-the-job training.

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 11:31 AM with the headline "Stanislaus County will need to hire 100-plus deputies for jail expansion."