Solano County could close its secondary jail in an effort to find nearly $19 million in budget savings over the next three years, Sheriff-Coroner Gary Stanton said last week at the first of three budget workshops hosted by the Board of Supervisors.
"We are not required to have two jails," Stanton told the board, according to The Reporter newspaper in Vacaville. "We are required to have a booking facility, and we have that (at the main county jail) in Fairfield."
But closing the Claybank detention facility on Clay Bank Road, also in Fairfield, would mean more overcrowding at the main jail and building code-required upgrades if it were ever to reopen, Stanton said.
In fact, he said, the Claybank facility already is overcrowded. Nearly 100 inmates were forced to sleep on cots last week, Stanton said.
But the jails were not the only place officials examined for more cuts to eliminate the county's multimillion-dollar annual deficit.
Supervisors also heard presentations from the Treasurer-Tax Collector, Veterans' Services, University of California Cooperative Extension, Agriculture Commissioner, Probation, District Attorney and other departments, the newspaper said.
Officials listed programs that were purely discretionary, which means the county can cut them, and programs that are partly discretionary or mandatory.
The county already has cut staff nearly back to 1997 levels, and cut its annual expenditures by more than $200 milllion, officials said.
The second workshop is scheduled for Sept. 21 before the regular Board of Supervisors meeting at the Solano County Government Center at 675 Texas St. in Fairfield.
The last of the workshops is scheduled for Oct. 26.
Comments
Close the jail and place people who commit misdemeanors on work furloughs doing community service or house arrest.
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