The San Diego County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on a new budget Thursday that would boost staffing in some of the county’s justice and law enforcement offices.
The extra funding is in response to Proposition 36, a ballot initiative that created harsher penalties for some repeat drug and theft crimes while creating pathways for court-mandated treatment.
San Diego County law enforcement has booked more than 5,700 defendants since Prop. 36 went into effect in December 2024. But the initiative itself didn’t set up new funding mechanisms to help counties deal with the associated costs, including more extensive treatment coordination and bigger caseloads for public defenders and prosecutors.
San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez said Prop. 36 defendants often have greater medical needs, and require longer jail stays due to treatment requirements.
“We're experiencing impacts as far as more hospital runs, more impacts to staff, higher booking numbers. We have to take care of folks when they're in our custody, so that impacts all of our operations,” she said.
The Sheriff’s Office held an average of nearly 3,900 people in custody at a given time in 2024 before Prop. 36 went into effect, according to Sheriff's Office Commander Christopher Lawrence. He said the daily population jumped to nearly 4,200 people last year after prosecutors started charging defendants under Prop. 36.
That squeeze is why the county’s latest budget proposal gives the Sheriff’s Office more than $15 million in new Prop. 36-related funds. Among other things, the money would support 23 new sworn personnel and re-entry staff, which includes counselors and coordinators.
Martinez said the extra resources would help her department build on recent success with in-house rehab programs.
“We have a lot of programming in the jails, if they stay with us for a period of time where we can really work on those substance-use disorder issues,” she said. “We have a lot of job training. There's a lot of opportunity.”
The proposed county budget would also stand up more than 30 new positions across the Office of the Public Defender and Probation Department in response to Prop. 36, and it includes more than $3 million in one-time state funding to build out behavioral health services for defendants.
Still, detractors have long claimed that Prop. 36 prioritizes imprisoning defendants over treating them.
Samantha Itazawa, a staff attorney for the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, said the proposed county budget reflects that.
“In dire times when the state faces tough choices of belt tightening, it should invest in the solutions proven to work — health care services and treatment — not just more punishment and incarceration,” she said.
If adopted, the proposed $9.16 billion county budget would take effect July 1.
