SALINAS, Calif. -- The Monterey County Sheriff's Office is looking to beef up its staff with 30 new deputies.
The department says it hasn't been able to hire recruit deputies for about two and a half years now because of the budget, but now Sheriff Scott Miller said the economy has turned around enough to be able to afford new deputies.
When he got into office last year, he had a big task.
He had to cut $5 million from the $75-million department budget.
And over the last decade, 75 percent of the deputy positions were cut.
"That slows down our response to calls for service in the field," he said. "It causes us to run with staffing shortages in the jail."
Now, almost two years later, he said the budget is rebounding.
"Now that the budget is stabilized, we're in a position where the county can afford to hire some new deputies. But because of the backlog where we've carried vacancies for so long, we're in a position of having to hire somewhere between 25 to 30 deputies," he said.
Six of those positions will be paid for by a three-year grant from the federal Office of Community Policing.
That grant expires in three years. No guarantee on those positions after that.
The rest of the deputies will come from the department budget with a price tag of about $150,000 each.
Sheriff Miller said because the department went without for so long, training and recruiting lag time could take a year or more to get the actual boots on the ground.
"Thankfully the economy seems to be rebounding. Hopefully in the future we'll continue in hiring mode," he said.
Entry-level recruitment for deputies opens on Monday.
Testing should start Dec. 15. At that time, the department hopes to have at least 10 recruits ready to begin the Police Academy training in the spring.
