Under new proposal, Solano sheriff would take over policing duties in large swath of Vallejo

VALLEJO – The Solano County Sheriff’s Office and the Vallejo Police Department proposed for the sheriff’s office to take over policing services in a large portion of Vallejo for half of every day by operating an autonomous service of 17 full-time employees at a cost of $11 million to support Vallejo’s depleted police department.

The Vallejo City Council reviewed the sheriff’s terms at a meeting on Thursday. The proposal is the result of nearly a year-and-a-half long effort to bring outside agencies in to support the Vallejo Police Department and required new state legislation to allow the sheriff’s office to supplement their staff with retirees.

Under the proposal, the sheriff’s office would provide one lieutenant, two sergeants, 12 deputies and two dispatchers. The city would pay $5.8 million for annual salaries and benefits for the 17 full-time employees and another $5.4 million for equipment, administration, insurance and other costs.

The current plan worked out by the Vallejo Police Department and the sheriff’s office would be for sheriff’s deputies and command staff to take on all police duties for beats one through four during the noon to midnight shift seven days a week. Beats one through four encompass all of Vallejo east of I-80 and neighborhoods west of I-80 south of Georgia Street.

Under the sheriff’s terms, the city of Vallejo must insure the sheriff’s office against liability and pay for legal defense if necessary. The sheriff’s deputies would follow sheriff’s office policy and procedures not city policy and procedures. 

The offer is also contingent upon confirmation from the state Department of Justice that the sheriff's office will not be subject to Vallejo’s reform agreement. The sheriff’s deputies union must also approve the final contract and the city must confer with the Vallejo Police Officers Association.

Vallejo Police Chief Jason Ta strongly advocated for the contract at Thursday’s meeting. “We need this not only for our community, we need this for our officers to feel like they're making a dent in what they're doing, and they're not going to a call exhausted, working overtime, making mistakes, getting tired, getting injured, getting frustrated and quitting to go somewhere else,” Ta said.

The city of Vallejo declared a public safety staffing emergency in July 2023 after staffing levels dropped to 67 sworn officers out of 132 budgeted positions earlier that spring. As of this month, Vallejo has 78 sworn officers out of 137 budgeted positions. 

Ta said that the average response time to a priority one call for service, involving an immediate threat of bodily harm or a crime in progress, is 13 minutes. Priority two calls take an average of 5.6 hours for an officer to respond and, priority three calls take over 8 hours. Ta estimated that with the support from the sheriff’s office those response times can be cut in half.

Vallejo City Manager Andrew Murray said that the county has put a significant amount of work into preparations to provide an offer of support. Before moving forward to develop a more detailed contract, the county is looking for a financial commitment from the city, he said.

Murray noted that the initial terms have not been approved by the Board of Supervisors so the council would have to commit the funds prior to the Board of Supervisors approval of any agreement.

In order for the sheriff’s office to provide the additional staffing, state Sen. Bill Dodd authored SB 1379, which was signed into law in September,  to extend limits on the number of hours that retired Solano County Sheriff’s deputies can work. The sheriff’s office plans to use the retirees for appropriate positions such as courthouse bailiffs while sending street-ready deputies to serve in Vallejo.

Murray said that a realistic timeline to finalize the terms of the contract and make the necessary arrangements for the sheriff's office to take on Vallejo beats would be Jan. 1, 2026, allowing for only one year of service before the law’s 2027 sunset date.

Councilmember Tonia Lediju asked if the city had put aside any of the police department salary savings to address the gap in service due to the vacant positions.  

City Finance Director Rekha Nayar said that in the previous year, $2 million had been set aside for an officer retention program and $2 million had gone to a cost of living increase for officers. She said that some of the funds were used to balance the budget and remaining amounts had flowed into the city’s reserve. 

For the 2024-25 fiscal year ending in June, Nayar said that she expects $7 million in salary savings from police department vacant positions.  

Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce said that she expects salary savings could cover the costs. “We're budgeted for 137 officers, and we have 78 so I mean, there's going to be savings there, and if there isn't, we're doing something wrong, because we're not getting the services,” she said.

But Nayer said that salary savings are used for police department overtime, which has been running about $4 million annually, and not all of that would be eliminated with the addition of the sheriff’s office support.

Councilmember Charles Palmares said that he would like to be able to compare a lower cost option, perhaps with reduced number of full time employees from the sheriff's office and more reliance on force multiplier technologies like drones and traffic citation cameras.

Councilmember Alex Matias envisioned the potential for increased revenue if Vallejoans feel more comfortable shopping locally.

“This needs to get done because our community has been asking for safer streets and a safer community for a very long time, and for one reason or another, we haven't been able to deliver on that,” Matias said. “It's going to give Vallejo a reassurance that they can go to their business districts and shop locally, which is going to bring in more tax revenue.” 

The council also questioned how oversight would work for the sheriff’s deputies. Councilmember Diosdado “JR” Matulac, pointed out that in the case of an officer-involved shooting, the Justice Department agreement requires an extensive reporting process that the sheriff’s deputies would not be subject to.

Ta said that when an officer-involved shooting occurs anywhere in Solano County, the incident is investigated by the Solano County major crimes task force out of the district attorney’s office. However, he said that the Vallejo police department hires an independent investigator to conduct an administrative review in addition to the county’s investigation. 

“The difference is, if there's an administrative review, that is not done our same way, so they may have their internal investigations team conduct the administrative review and go through their policies and procedures as it relates to policy violations,” Ta said.

Sorce said she wanted the sheriff’s office to be liable in case a deputy violated policy. “My understanding is that the sheriff is willing to take on the liability if an officer is found to violate policy,” she said. “So if a sheriff's deputy comes out to Vallejo, gets involved in the use of force, violates policy, that’ll be on the sheriff’s department. We need to confirm that, we need to get that codified, because I think that is incredibly reasonable.”

“One of the things I'd like to hash out, and make sure that we have a neutral evaluator evaluating whether someone violates policy, because if you have your sheriff's office and a deputy is involved in the use of force and the sheriff's office is evaluating it, knowing they're on the hook if they find a violation, that's a little bit of a conflict of interest,” Sorce said. “So how do we come to an agreement on a good investigator that we can both feel good about and trust on both sides.” 

Sorce compiled a list of questions that arose in the meeting including a comparison of the critical incident review policies and procedures of both agencies, more information from the sheriff office on specifically what issues they are concerned in the Justice Department agreement and the possibility of starting the contract before Jan. 1, 2026.

The council unanimously voted to direct staff to return to council with that additional information and a resolution proposal for how to move forward in developing a contract with the Sheriff’s Office. The council expects to work with the city manager to agendize the issue before the end of the month.