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President's Message
February 2010
Meeting with County Negotiator
On January 28th, members of SEBA Board of Directors met with the county negotiator Bob Windle. This meeting was scheduled pursuant to the agreement passed by the membership in June of 2009 in regard to the pay raise deferral covering the time from July 4, 2009 until pay period 15 of 2010. Mr. Windle said property taxes and other revenue sources had continued to decline over the last several months causing the county to have an estimated budget shortage in the area of $80 million going forward into the 2010-11 fiscal year.
Windle will be meeting with the new CAO within the next two weeks and will then contact SEBA to discuss specifics regarding the financial condition of the county. There was no discussion about giving up any upcoming raises or other previously negotiated benefits. I requested the county to consider developing some type of presentation to show all county workers the financial condition of the county and what the projections show for the future. Once we have some type of idea on the potential budget shortage I will be able to give you more information.
Early Release of State Prisoners
Pursuant to the passage of Senate Bill (SB) 18 (3x) last year, an early release of convicted felons has begun effective January 25, 2010. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) have already started the process of screening offenders for this unsupervised form of parole known as Non-Revocable Parole (NRP). The State is looking at the release of about 6,000 inmates over the next four months.
About the only part of this program consistent with being on parole are the search terms. Any parolee released under this section will have search terms. Prior to their release from custody, they will be advised they are still subject to search by any law enforcement agency pursuant to PC Section 3067. These individuals will not be subject to arrest for parole violations and they will have no type of supervision.
This is an ill-advised and ill-conceived attempt by Governor Schwarzenegger to reduce some of the ever increasing debt in the State. This will only put more citizens at risk and cost more money to prosecute the repeat offenders who are estimated to be at about 65%. They will re-offend and now have to be put through the whole process of incarceration, prosecution and sentencing to get back to where they belong, "PRISON."
These 6,000 early releases don't count towards the other 25, 000 releases being ordered by our federal courts due to inadequate medical resources and overcrowding concerns. Where is the concern for the soon to be new and repeat victims from these individuals who have shown time after time they will commit more crimes once they are released from prison? This is not the way to fix our budget problems!
And as always, last but not least, "Stay safe out there."
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