Bianco Threatens Massive Job Cuts At RivCo Sheriff's Department If Full Budget Request Isn't Approved

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told the Board of Supervisors Monday that unmet budget requests in the 2026-27 fiscal year totaling $250 million would likely require him to slash hundreds of positions, most of them patrol deputies.

"This is a massive number that we cannot recover from," Bianco told the board during the outset of budget hearings Monday at the County Administrative Center in Riverside. "The proposed budget for us is absolutely disastrous."

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Bianco said roughly $138 million of the $250 million request that the sheriff's department submitted to the Executive Office for consideration, and wasn't accepted, amounts to "stay flat funding" to keep the agency about where it was in staffing during the current fiscal year. Without the board's approval of that figure, 622 patrol deputy positions would need to be slashed, the sheriff said. Or, if he resorted to leaving deputy positions untouched and resorted to cuts to administrative and other personnel, the number may be 1,000, he said.

"Achieving these kinds of reductions would require a phased multi-year implementation," Bianco said, explaining that to do it all in one fell swoop would be too great a threat to public safety.

He asserted there would be major impacts to unincorporated communities as patrols are taken away to ensure the 17 municipalities that contract with the county for law enforcement services continue to receive protection.

The sheriff said his current projected budget gap, if unadjusted, erases any potential for fully opening the Benoit Detention Center in Indio, which is barely a quarter occupied due to spending constraints, and there would be little possibility of moving ahead with the Ben Clark Public Safety Training Center modernization project, or constructing a new hangar to anchor the sheriff's air fleet at March Air Reserve Base.

"These are tough budget times," Supervisor Jose Medina told Bianco. "The pain needs to be distributed across the county departments. As important as public safety is, it cannot be helped not to feel some of the pain (of spending caps)."

Supervisor Chuck Washington acknowledged there had been "tradeoffs" in the past to work through budget discipline and hold down excesses. He and the sheriff briefly sparred over Bianco's dire tones over not being able to expand operations at the Benoit jail, with the supervisor correctly noting that the sheriff in previous years had been somewhat tranquil.

Bianco turned vehement, saying the only reason he'd held back regarding his frustrations is that he had been told by supervisors' staffs and Executive Office accountants "to stop talking about (jail funding)" during budget hearings.

"We're capped, and we're struggling with how to solve this (budget imbalance)," Washington said.

District Attorney Mike Hestrin's presentation was less contentious, though he signaled the need for $14 million above what the Executive Office had proposed for his agency in General Fund appropriations during 2026-27.

"We know there are financial headwinds facing the entire state," Hestrin told the board. "But we have seen a wave of retirements at the D.A.'s office."

He said to maintain current staffing and cover the costs of concessions in contracts with labor unions the $14 million is necessary, representing "flat funding" for the next fiscal year.

Hestrin said that along with retirements, Orange County and, to a lesser extent, Los Angeles County, have been recruiting prosecutors out of Riverside County. The D.A.'s office has 228 prosecutors now, which is over the lowest number in the last decade of 219 in 2022-23. However, ever increasing state mandates continue to burden deputy district attorneys with expanding workloads.

The D.A. said filling his budget ask would also enable the office to establish a dedicated "crypto currency and cybercrimes unit." Hestrin said fraud is becoming more complex, and seniors tend to suffer the highest losses. The new unit might help quickly recover funds siphoned away by crooks.

The shortest presentation among public safety heads was by county Fire Chief Robert Fish, who asked simply for an additional $900,000 over the Executive Office's proposed General Fund allocation to cover the expense of slightly increasing the number of "nurse dispatchers," who sometimes resolve 911 medical calls without requiring paramedic and engine squads to respond to a home or business.

The "nurse navigation" system was implemented in October and has since successfully resolved about 3,000 emergency calls via phone, leaving personnel at fire stations available for "true emergencies," Fish said.

As it stands now, excluding the public safety budget requests, the county has a projected $66 million structural budget deficit going into 2026-27, according to county CEO Jeff Van Wagenen.

"This is not a budget proposal that funds everything that departments believe they need," he told the board. "But we can preserve core services ... and address the structural imbalance (using reserves)."

He recommended a continuation of a targeted hiring freeze that began last year.

"Growth is flattening," Van Wagenen said. "We have to prioritize. We can try to reduce our size through attrition and avoid layoffs. The strategic use of reserves and just-in-time funding, with targeted spending controls, will be necessary. This budget reflects difficult choices."

The proposed appropriations plan totals $10.34 billion, a roughly 3.5% increase from the 2025-26 budget, which totaled $9.98 billion.

The new spending blueprint indicated that 30% of allocations would be dedicated to health and hospital services, followed by 23% for public safety units, 19% for human services, 11% for public works, 9% for internal support to departments and 7% for agencies dedicated to various governmental operations, such as the Office of County Counsel.

The county's composite reserves should reach $650 million at the end of the current fiscal year.

More than two-thirds of the county budget is composed of programmed spending, including federal and state earmarks for specific uses, along with grants and related external source revenue. The board has little control over those dollars.

Additional budget hearings may be necessary Tuesday afternoon. The proposed budget is slated for tentative approval on June 23.