Endorsement: No on San Bernardino County Measure L
San Bernardino County voters will soon consider yet another weirdly-written charter amendment.
Measure L, dubbed the "San Bernardino County Law Enforcement Staffing and Community Protection Act," was placed on the ballot by vote of the Board of Supervisors.
The measure, in brief, does two things.
First, it requires the Board of Supervisors to fund county patrol deputies in the unincorporated areas at a certain base level ("an average of the amount of actual patrol personnel salary and benefit costs in the unincorporated area of the county in the three previous fiscal years").
This seems like a reasonable policy for the county to have. After all, residents and businesses in the unincorporated areas pay taxes too and expect some level of policing services for safety and security.
Sheriffs deputy union president Grant Ward explained to this editorial board that this provision is intended to provide stable funding for law enforcement and that the county currently is adequately meeting this goal right now.
Does this really require a charter amendment, though? Probably not. The members of the Board of Supervisors are paid to make policy decisions and prioritize the county's finite public funds, and currently are meeting the expectation that they fund law enforcement services appropriately.
In theory, this provision hedges against future boards deciding to significantly pull back on such funding. But only up to a point. The measure also includes a provision giving the board the power to waive this minimum funding requirement of four out of five members of the board agree to do so.
What's the point of this, then?
The answer is likely in the second major set of provisions of this measure: pay raises for county officials.
Voters who try to read up on what exactly this measure does and why they are voting on it will probably be confused if they read the ballot argument in support, because it emphasizes the minimum funding provision and says it actually cuts the "county's elected officials' special compensation for personal vehicles and cell phones."
But you'd have to read the measure carefully to notice what it actually does.
The fourth prong of the "statement of purpose" in the measure admits that it sets out "to provide competitive compensation for county elected officers, except the Board of Supervisors and County Superintendent of Schools, to attract and retain qualified individuals to serve in these constitutionally elected offices."
As reported by Follow Our Courts , "Currently, the county charter says that most elected officials cannot be paid more than the average base salary of their counterparts' salary in Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura and Kern counties. Measure L would swap out Kern for Los Angeles, direct the DA and sheriff's base salaries to be based off of the total salaries of their counterparts and remove a 4% yearly raise cap for the positions."
Swapping out Kern County for Los Angeles County, as you might imagine, makes a big difference for Sheriff Shannon Dicus and District Attorney Jason Anderson.
"In total, the average sheriff's salary, if determined in 2023, would move from $281,000 to $399,000," reported Follow Our Courts' Aidan McGloin. "The comparative average DA's salary would increase from $294,000 to $360,000."
According to Transparent California, Sheriff Dicus received pay ($291,459.62) and benefits ($258,311.10) totaling $549,770 in 2023. DA Anderson , pulled pay ($272,387.14) and benefits ($159,456.69) totaling $431,843.83 that same year. Allow us to play the world's smallest violin for their wish of making more money for positions they chose to run for.
If voters in San Bernardino County had the option, we suspect voters might approve the first provision of Measure L and spike the second provision. And, as an aside, we don't think Sheriff Dicus merits a pay raise, especially not after revelations of how he handled the shooting of 15-year-old Savannah Graziano .
Vote no on Measure L. The sheriff and DA are highly paid public servants. They shouldn't hide behind a phony law enforcement-funding scheme to try to get a big raise.
