HCISD ASKS COUNTY FOR POST-UVALDE CAMPUS SECURITY AID

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

With Cameron County facing a $5.2 million budget deficit for the 2022-2023 fiscal year and its Sheriff's Department saddled with  $2 million in overtime pay for deputies and jailers, and another $1.9 million in food services, it is now been asked by the Harlingen Independent School District to help with their campus security.

The HISD request is contained in a supplemental agenda to Tuesday's 9 a.m. meeting filed August 5 at 4 p.m. as an addendum to the regular agenda filed earlier in the day at about 11:38 a.m. There is no copy of the interlocal agreement proposed by the HCISD in the county agenda packet to determine what funds or personnel the district and county would be obligated to contribute.

HCISD may find itself in the same boat as other county departments that have come before the commissioners court asking for budget and personnel salary increases and have been told in no uncertain terms that there is no money in the county kitty for their requests.

Meanwhile, with just a week before classes open, City of Harlingen and school officials continue to negotiate a proposed security agreement calling on the district to start a police department amid residents' concerns in the wake of the Uvalde massacre. 

School officials are proposing the city boost the number of officers it assigns to the district from four to nine.The school district – which unlike the Brownsville Independent School District has no district police force – assigns 50 security officers to work under Danny Castillo, a former Harlingen police chief and city commissioner who serves as the district's director of emergency management and school safety overseeing its security program.

District officials worked with their attorneys to revise the plan before presenting their version to City Hall on Thursday. They have declined to release the proposed agreement.

"We've had a series of discussions with the school district and they continue," City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez told the Valley Morning Star Friday.

Mayor Norma Sepulveda said. that if the city takes from its police force, it would curtail prodiging security for the rest of the city.

"The district wants more officers this year," she said. "That would mean taking officers off the street."
City officials have traditionally assigned four officers to the district, which pays their salaries as part of the agreement. And five additional officers rotate shifts to work school security.

But Mayor Sepulveda says that the district officials want the city to boost the number of full-time officers assigned to the district to nine. 

"There's no way I could do that without impacting the community," she said.

Currently, 139 officers are working for the police department, Sgt. Larry Moore, the department's spokesman, told the daily.  As part of their proposal, city officials would help the district take steps to start its police department, Sepulveda said, noting many school districts, like the BISD, operate police departments. The district will be operating a "surveillance room" in which officials will be monitoring hundreds of surveillance cameras across 31 campuses, she said.

"We are trying to come to an agreement," she told the newspaper, adding, "hopefully come up with one soon – the school year's approaching. I want the children to be safe, secure. I want to do whatever is possible. It's absolutely in their hands."

And now the schools have turned to the county for assistance to provide security to its 31 campuses and nearly 18,000 students. But if the HISD thinks that the county will prove to be its knight in shining armor, they may have another thing coming.

With about $2 million in overtime pay for deputies and jailers, and another $1.9 million in food

services provided to Cameron County inmates, County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. has asked the county’s budget officer to meet with authorities with the sheriff’s department address its $3.9 million in costs.  The Brownsville Herald reported that Treviño ordered Xavier Villarreal, deputy county administrator and budget officer to get together with Sheriff Eric Garza and his staff to find a solution to the overtime pay and food service costs.

“I would ask that you get with the sheriff and his administration to inquire what the plan is for this,” Trevino said referring to the $1.9 million in food services for the inmates. 

“I understand that this used to be handled partially by trustees but there has been an issue since COVID began, or once it was full force, that impacted the trustees’ ability to assist in the preparation and distribution of the inmate meals; that’s a $2 million hit right there plus the cost associated with the overtime the sheriff’s department is having either through the deputy sheriffs or the jail department. We need to know what that number is and what the plan is to address both of these numbers.”

The Commissioners Court voted last March to freeze hirings at the sheriff’s department so overtime pay could be paid due to the loss of revenue for the housing of federal inmates. Approximately 60 jailer slots were frozen.“We need the sheriff’s suggestions, guidance, his ideas, whatever his plan of action is going forward, that way we can help try to address that,” Trevino said.

The county has lost $2.6 million for housing federal and state inmates due to the department not complying with their joint agreement, about $800,000 from the road and bridge fund plus another $900,000 in projected losses from the justices of the peace, Villarreal told the commissioners.

Pct. 3 commissioner David Garza said added up the figures saying about $6.6 million is used for the operations of the sheriff’s department.

“Let’s see what kind of plan can be developed to deal with that issue,” Garza said.

In an earlier interview with the Herald, Sheriff  Garza said he was losing employees who were going to other agencies for higher pay. He complained that he had "inherited" the jailer shortage situation from the former Omar Lucio administration and blamed the commissioners for not funding higher salaries for jailers.

“We have all these other counties like Corpus Christi. They are paying upwards of $35,000 to $40,000 a year. We are at $30,000 per year per jailer. These guys go over to the private sector, to the fed (federal government) and they make $40,000. We are left with trying to recoup the jailers. For every 10 new jailers we get, eight leave.”

“They have accrued so much sick leave and vacation comp (compensation) I can’t replace them until they go through that time. This is something that I inherited, and I have to figure out a way to fix it,” the sheriff said, adding at the same time he needs to make sure his jailers are kept safe.

"Nobody wants to work with him," said a county administrator. "Nothing like this happened under Lucio. Now he wants to blame him for these shortcomings. He did this on his own."