The budget battles of recent years led to county-level staff reductions through attrition and layoffs. But even as the number of people employed through the county decreased, the work remained flat, or maybe increased marginally.

The reason is simple: counties still were providing services, they were just asked to do it with less.

Governor Brown’s proposed budget appears to be changing that request. By shifting thousands of parolees from State supervision and instead leaving them in the charge of the county parol officers and justice systems, these understaffed or overburdened staffs will have to find a way to ensure public safety.

Spokespeople from Sacramento-area parole offices all said the same thing: they will need to rebuild their departments before they can handle a new influx of parolees, otherwise public safety could suffer.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Capital region counties, already struggling to supervise probationers, are concerned about Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to add parolees to their workloads.

Parole supervision is one of several services the governor wants to shift from state responsibility to the counties.

Sacramento and other counties have lost probation officers to budget cuts in recent years. California counties generally fall below national standards for probation caseloads.

Read the full article here.