Marinscope
After hearing from Black Lives Matter speakers, the Marin County Board of Supervisors trimmed $1.7 million from the proposed Marin County Sheriff’s Department budget increase — the equivalent of 8 officers.
At a virtual meeting on June 24, the supervisors heard hundreds of people demand a complete defunding of the Sheriff’s Department and the money reallocated to schools and counselors. Some demanded that the department stop putting officers on school campuses.
Others told county leaders that police are a blight on Marin and need to disappear.
San Rafael resident Bishlam Bullock, for example, said “I want to completely defund the police departments and reallocate those monies towards social services, libraries and teachers. I’m telling you right now if you’re not going to do anything we’re going to vote you out of there.”
“We don’t want to just scrape off a little money from the surface of the department where it isn’t being used,” Reilly Amber told the supervisors. “We want to defund the police. That means ending and reducing services that the sheriff is providing. We know their presence in the community is actively harmful and unwanted.”
Sheriff Robert Doyle expressed disappointment at the meeting. He told the supervisors that he understands the need for his department to help overcome the county’s budget deficit. But speaker after speaker in the public hearing brutalized the Sheriff’s Department’s performance with no pushback from elected officials.
In the end, the Board amended the proposed budget to include a reduction of $1.7 million to the Sheriff-Coroner’s Office proposed budget to augment efforts to fund racial equity initiatives to $2.7 million. The Board also deferred voting on a grant-funded school resource officer.
The budget hearings were conducted via videoconference June 22-24 and included over 400 comments from members of the public. The overwhelming majority of public comments were in support of reducing the Sheriff-Coroner budget as part of a larger national campaign to defund law enforcement, reinvesting the savings in additional community services and education.
“I was very moved over the past three days by the comments of the public, in particular the comments of the younger generation and voices that we have not heard before,” Board President Katie Rice said. “I appreciated the passion, compassion and empathy they brought to this public forum.”
County Administrator Matthew Hymel said that the budget maintains current services and avoids immediate reductions in high priority programs.
”This is the beginning of a process to rebalance the County budget, and there will be hard choices ahead,” he said. “In the fall, when there is more certainty about the economic outlook and potential state/federal emergency funds, our staff will return to the Board with a plan to close a projected $15 million to $20 million shortfall.”
The Board approved a $619.7 million budget for 2020-21, a 1.7% reduction, due to declining revenues related to the pandemic. To achieve a balanced budget for 2020-21, the Board approved $8.4 million in one-time expenditure reductions and the use of $2.1 million in fiscal reserves.
Top priorities in the budget included the following:
- responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency;
- building reserves for future uncertainty; and
- making one-time reductions to achieve a balanced budget.
Budget Manager Bret Uppendahl said the Board’s decision to build reserves in the past few years will allow the County to make thoughtful adjustments over the next year to close its projected longer-term budget gap.
“Future budget shortfalls will be more significant,” he said. “Over the next few months, we will work with the departments to identify permanent reductions to achieve an ongoing structural balance.”
Learn more about the County’s budget overview webpage. Budget feedback may be emailed to the County budget staff.
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