San Francisco needs to shave $400 million in spending to accommodate a budget deficit, and Mayor Daniel Lurie has instructed departments to start by cutting any services that duplicate one another.
But the Adult Probation Department submitted a budget proposal last week requesting $12.7 million for a new program that furnishes the same service a city-contracted nonprofit is already paid to provide.
The city currently pays more than $8 million annually to the San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project to work with people awaiting trial outside of jail.
For 50 years, the nonprofit has connected people suspected of crimes to housing, employment, and medical treatment, the same services the probation department is now proposing.
CEO David Mauroff said the Pretrial Diversion Project received no notification of the probation department’s proposal, which he described as “an exact duplication of our services at a much higher cost.”
His nonprofit currently has a staff approaching 100 and a total budget of $12.8 million, part of which is covered by local and state grants.
Probation is asking for $11 million from the city’s general fund and $1.7 million in court funding.
According to the proposal, which will be reviewed by the mayor’s office in the coming months, part of the money will go toward providing housing and mental health services to those awaiting trial.
It would also fund 50 full-time employees, who are already being recruited. Last Thursday, a director position was posted.
“I’ve never heard of putting out job descriptions that haven’t even been approved in the budget,” said Sandra Lee Fewer, a former budget chair for San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a current board member of the Pretrial Diversion Program.
Alea Brown-Hoffmeister, the probation department’s director of policy and legislation, declined to comment.
For years, the partnership between the Pretrial Diversion Program and the sheriff’s department has been endorsed by San Francisco politicians, law-enforcement leaders, and criminal-justice advocates alike.
In 2023, the nonprofit reported that 93 percent of its clients were not charged with another crime while participating. At other pre-trial pilot programs throughout the state, on average only 65 percent of defendants avoided picking up another charge.
In 2021, California State Bill 129 allocated funding for pre-trial programs to be operated by probation departments. But the bill specifically created a carve-out for San Francisco’s court to contract with “the existing not-for-profit entity,” the Pretrial Diversion Project.
Still, the probation department now wants to make developing and implementing its own pretrial services a “budget priority” in the coming years.
“The Court has advised that SFAPD will assume Pretrial Services effective July 1,” Chief Probation Officer Cristel Tullock wrote in a Feb. 23 letter to the mayor’s budget director and city controller. “SFAPD welcomes the opportunity to integrate Pretrial Services as a new division.”
Hiring, training and implementing a new pretrial services division by July 1 is “fiscally irresponsible” and “unrealistic,” Mauroff said.
Even if probation got its program running, he added, it would create “confusion and uncertainty” for attorneys, judges, deputies and defendants.
Unlike those whom the probation department traditionally works with, people in pre-trial services have not yet been convicted of a crime, so the probation department will design a unique program that relies on civilian staff rather than sworn officers, Tullock wrote.
The chief probation officer described this as “an opportunity to address duplicative efforts that currently overburden the courts, resources, and services for individuals involved in multiple systems,” though she did not specify what those were.
The proposal comes as Lurie is seeking hundreds of millions in cuts, including paring back on contracts with community-based organizations. The mayor’s office said yesterday it aimed to cut $100 million in staff across the city, equivalent to 500 jobs, among other reductions.
The mayor’s office did not comment on pre-trial services.
Probation has struggled to find places for cuts. The $76.8 million and $80 million total funding it has requested for the next two fiscal years exceeds its target.
Existing constraints have left the department without resources for “basic law-enforcement operational functions” like background investigations, Tullock wrote in the Feb. 23 letter.
This is not the first time the department has proposed its own pretrial services. In 2019, the California legislature set aside funding for pilot pretrial service programs at 10 probation departments statewide. San Francisco’s probation department was not selected.
“We already have a system that works so well,” said David Rizk, a member of the San Francisco Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Task Force, at the time. “This is a solution in search of a problem.”
this proposal sounds like a bad idea from the outset and some of the repeat of what happened in 2019 when adult probation was the only one in favor of taking over what pretrial diversion has been doing but starting from scratch and costing more. if this is what the mayor’s people think will save them money, this is a mistake that will come back to haunt them in the near future when the results will come back how much worse people are doing and how much more money we will need to spend on incarceration along with getting half the staff for the same price in a new pretrial division. Even the CEO of the non-profit makes less than the current posted position for the head of the new pretrial manager. I guess maybe it will increase the number of places where law enforcement personnel can be placed once they retire or are forced out after injuries or burn out from their jobs early but still need income?
This proposal is not only promises to be a complete boondoggle, but it is based on antiquated thinking. For one, Adult Probation officers are an extension of law enforcement: In California, Penal Code Section 830.5 classifies probation officers as “peace officers,” meaning, they can carry firearms on duty (after completing Penal Code section 832 training) and have authority to make arrests and detain people under their supervision, according to their individual judgment.
Pretrial service workers are more akin to social workers. They work with people released by the courts to connect them with services if needed. They also remind people of their court dates and meet weekly with people on Supervised Pretrial Release. They do an excellent job and care about the people released to them. That will not be the case with law enforcement/probation officers. They are a different breed and Pretrial Services should not be turned over to them.
This is not a money-saving measure. This is because a former Presiding Judge wanted to move pretrial release away from the new model of treating and helping defendants out on pretrial release.
Currently, there is nothing wrong with how PTS operates and they are doing it on a shoestring. The positive outcomes will slowly slip away if their service is turned over to law enforcement officers. Nothing here needs fixing.
this is such a shame that some board members endorsed this foolish idea.
If this comes to pass, we will soon regret it. Sad. We are going backwards.
How much could the City save if it eliminates the position that Chief Probation Officer Cristel Tullock now fills?