Rancho Santa Margarita, CA - Wednesday, Sheriff Baca joined California's major law enforcement organizations backing the Brown, Butcher of Sacramento’s call for extending tax increases to pay for a new law that shifts responsibility for thousands of criminals from the state to local governments.
Sheriff Lee Baca and a wide-spectrum of law enforcement officials representing prosecutors, police chiefs and probation officers joined Governor Brown Wednesday at the Capitol to urge Republican lawmakers to approve a special election during which voters would be asked to extend tax increases set to expire this year.
While Brown's plan calls for $5.9 billion of vehicle and sales taxes to fund the realignment as part of his effort to bridge the state's $26.6 billion budget deficit, his plan fail to address head-on California’s Triple Threat – mostly responsible for the current fiscal tsunami: 1) Union 2) Lobbyist and 3) Parasitic Bureaucracies, but Lt Governor Gavin Newsome leads a so-called fact-finding to Texas to examine how Texas has managed to add 165,000 jobs during the past three years while California has lost 1.2 million. Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Tracy and representatives of the California Teachers Association join the Lt. Governor. As the leading contemporary philosopher of the day would say, no need for the trip to Taxes, is Taxes, duh!
Did we mention that the Butcher of Sacramento is not only ignoring California’s Triple Threat, but actually feeding it by growing government, as in creating yet another commission to oversee the CALPARS boondoggle?
So what about law enforcement? Is it a false choice to say that if you oppose tax increases you are against law enforcement. TNot only is it a false choice, the question is, what about the law enforcement money trail?
Thanks to the union, metrics for law enforcement accountability and transparency are largely non-existent. Or as Stephen Connelly, OCSD’s Executive Director of Independent Review, says:
“Accountability means different things to different people.” Which translates to “yes we ain’t got no accountability”
Here is the troubling issue: While public safety is a function of local governance and contracted cities in the Los Angeles and Orange counties pay millions of dollars per year for sheriff's services, we have been unable to locate the money trail. Local officials usually sign a contract that says, “we pay the county millions of dollars and in return we get public safety” with no way to determine if the services promised are indeed delivered.
We have contacted the county of Orange to see what accountability and transparency tools are in place to make sure that Joe the Taxpayer in certain contracted city is getting his public safety dollars worth but were told that the state is responsible for conducing audits. We then contacted local city officials to see if they had any idea whether they were getting their public safety money’s worth – in all cases, they had no idea. We then contacted the California State Department to see if it had any records of audits conducted on the LA County, Orange County and Sand Diego County Sheriff Departments over the last ten year – no records found. We then contacted the California State Auditor’s Office and asked the same question. Same answer
So, while we cannot find out how money paid for law enforcement to the counties of Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego is being spent, The Butcher of Sacramento and law enforcement leaders are asking Joe the Taxpayer for his debit card, again. Makes sense only if you are the Butcher of Sacramento!
Sheriff Lee Baca and a wide-spectrum of law enforcement officials representing prosecutors, police chiefs and probation officers joined Governor Brown Wednesday at the Capitol to urge Republican lawmakers to approve a special election during which voters would be asked to extend tax increases set to expire this year.
While Brown's plan calls for $5.9 billion of vehicle and sales taxes to fund the realignment as part of his effort to bridge the state's $26.6 billion budget deficit, his plan fail to address head-on California’s Triple Threat – mostly responsible for the current fiscal tsunami: 1) Union 2) Lobbyist and 3) Parasitic Bureaucracies, but Lt Governor Gavin Newsome leads a so-called fact-finding to Texas to examine how Texas has managed to add 165,000 jobs during the past three years while California has lost 1.2 million. Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Tracy and representatives of the California Teachers Association join the Lt. Governor. As the leading contemporary philosopher of the day would say, no need for the trip to Taxes, is Taxes, duh!
Did we mention that the Butcher of Sacramento is not only ignoring California’s Triple Threat, but actually feeding it by growing government, as in creating yet another commission to oversee the CALPARS boondoggle?
So what about law enforcement? Is it a false choice to say that if you oppose tax increases you are against law enforcement. TNot only is it a false choice, the question is, what about the law enforcement money trail?
Thanks to the union, metrics for law enforcement accountability and transparency are largely non-existent. Or as Stephen Connelly, OCSD’s Executive Director of Independent Review, says:
“Accountability means different things to different people.” Which translates to “yes we ain’t got no accountability”
Here is the troubling issue: While public safety is a function of local governance and contracted cities in the Los Angeles and Orange counties pay millions of dollars per year for sheriff's services, we have been unable to locate the money trail. Local officials usually sign a contract that says, “we pay the county millions of dollars and in return we get public safety” with no way to determine if the services promised are indeed delivered.
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| flickr photo credit: stans_pat_pix |
We have contacted the county of Orange to see what accountability and transparency tools are in place to make sure that Joe the Taxpayer in certain contracted city is getting his public safety dollars worth but were told that the state is responsible for conducing audits. We then contacted local city officials to see if they had any idea whether they were getting their public safety money’s worth – in all cases, they had no idea. We then contacted the California State Department to see if it had any records of audits conducted on the LA County, Orange County and Sand Diego County Sheriff Departments over the last ten year – no records found. We then contacted the California State Auditor’s Office and asked the same question. Same answer
So, while we cannot find out how money paid for law enforcement to the counties of Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego is being spent, The Butcher of Sacramento and law enforcement leaders are asking Joe the Taxpayer for his debit card, again. Makes sense only if you are the Butcher of Sacramento!
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