Cameron County Commissioners Court made it clear Tuesday that they want Sheriff Eric Garza involved in discussions about solutions pertaining to its budget shortfall.
County leaders cited $2 million in overtime pay at the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department and $1.9 million in the feeding of inmates in the county’s jail system.
This week, Commissioners Court continues to address a $5.2 million budget shortfall as county leaders prepares a budget for fiscal year 2022-2023. Again this week, the sheriff’s department budget was at the forefront of Tuesday’s public meeting.
Discussions got somewhat heated Tuesday when Silver Cisneros, of the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department, asked the court to unfreeze some of the jailer positions the commission froze in March.
County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. responded to Cisneros, asking him where he thought the county was going to get the money to pay for the new hires.
“How do you want us to pay to reopen those positions?” Trevino asked.
Cisneros replied, “The thing is like I said, it’s not going to be new positions.”
Trevino responded, “My question is how do you want this commissioners court to pay for any new positions right now that we have gotten frozen?”
“That’s up to you, that’s not up to us,” Cisneros replied.
Trevino quickly said, “You are asking us to reopen it or let me put it this way, the sheriff is asking for us to reopen it? And I understand that, so our question is, and I think that I speak for the court, how do you want us to pay it? Right now, we are looking at several million dollars deficit because of operations in the sheriff’s office.”
Cisneros fired back and said: “It’s not fair to say that the deficit is just because of us.”
This appeared to upset Trevino, who replied “You want to have this discussion right now? You want to have this discussion right now?”
“No sir, I do not,” Cisneros said. “I am here to ask if you can unfreeze these positions.”
“Okay, tell us how you want us to pay for it,” Trevino asked, in which Cisneros replied, “Well with the budget, obviously.”
Trevino said “with what money, sir? You have been at the meetings, and you understand that right now we have a budget deficit. We’ve got a $1.9 deficit because of the inmate meals. Have you got a suggestion on how to address that?”
Cisneros said it could be addressed by providing raises to its jailers.
A commander with the jail division said inmates volunteered to serve as trustees to help with the food distribution because incentives were provided for them. Once COVID-19 happened, the food distribution by the trustees stopped, as did the incentives.
Xavier Villarreal, deputy county administrator and budget officer for the county, explained at last week’s meeting that during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the jail was no longer able to provide trustees to help distribute the meals to the inmates.
“The company at the time had to bring in additional staff in order to provide that service and so they had to increase their price per meal,” Villarreal said.
Major Frank Mason, of the jail division, said the sheriff’s department is asking Commissioners Court to unfreeze 25 jailer slots that would allow the department to continue the hiring process.
“The hiring process could take anywhere from two weeks to a month to actually get them in and start, so this would allow us to at least start and hopefully by the time the employees that resigned were completely off our payroll we have somebody ready to come in,” Mason said.
Seven jailers have resigned from the department, but they will not officially be removed from the payroll until they have used up their vacation and compensation time. Their positions cannot be filled until they are removed from the payroll, which should be in September.
Precinct 3 Commissioner David Garza suggested those seven slots be paid off so new jailers could be hired. He also suggested that members of the sheriff’s department meet with the county’s budget department to see what solutions they could come up with on how to lower the costs.
“I would like to encourage you, all three of you, and all three of you to sit down before next Tuesday and help us, because every jailer that is working 70 hours a week to make sure you are fully staffed, could potentially be another body getting well paid as a jailer working 40 hours a week.”
Garza added: “I would rather spend overtime dollars on more positions than overtime.”
Precinct 1 Commissioner Sofia C. Benavides appeared concerned about what was going on and said the sheriff should be attending the meetings in which the budget is being addressed to try and provide solutions.
“I’d like to see the sheriff come here and sit down and talk to us. Put everything that has gone on behind us and let’s move forward,” she said. “Every department head and every elected official has come to talk to us. Let’s talk and let’s get pass this.”
Garza responded: “Include the sheriff in your discussions and invite him…we want solutions, bring us solutions.”
Precinct 2 Commissioner Joey Lopez said this was the first good conversation Commissioners Court has had with the sheriff’s department.
“This is the first good information I have received since the sheriff has taken over,” Lopez said.
Trevino chimed in: “Please don’t misunderstand our discussion or our questions. We know you are doing a hell of a job with the resources that you got available. We appreciate it, and we want you to continue to do that. You are important to running this county, you are important to protecting or citizens and our inmates.”
Budget talks will continue at next Tuesday’s Cameron County Commissioners Court meeting in Brownsville.
