A PROPOSAL FRAUGHT WITH DELAYS that would cut the understaffed Vallejo Police Department’s response times in half has now made “significant progress,” Solano County Sheriff Thomas Ferrara said.
But it won’t come without another delay.
Ferrara told Solano County Supervisors at their meeting Tuesday that the plan, which would use deputies from the Solano County Sheriff’s Office to assist the Vallejo Police Department, had been discussed with two unions — Service Employees International Union and the Law Enforcement Managers Association — but talks with the Deputy Sheriff’s Association likely wouldn’t be complete until Aug. 5.
“If we kick it to Aug. 5 for that final agreement, I am confident we would still be able to start patrol services in January 2026, which is what we’ve been saying from the beginning,” Ferrara said. “I’m very excited it looks like we’re headed that way.”
The Vallejo Police Department has struggled with severe staffing shortages for years, as the city has also recorded high rates of gun violence. Calls to 911 for emergencies other than the most extreme crimes have frequently gone unanswered.
The proposal stems from a 2022 request by the city of Vallejo, which asked the county for help in the form of a patrol agreement that would send 25 sheriff’s deputies to certain calls in certain areas within city limits, mostly on the outer edges of the city that border the unincorporated area, which is the usual jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Office.
The Vallejo City Council upheld its end of the plan, allocating $11.4 million to pay for the deputies, with the county expected to kick in $1 million for the one-year contract period, which would start in January 2026.
The state’s retirement system, CalPERS, and the Deputy Sheriff’s Association both expressed that there could be obstacles to the proposal moving forward.
The Sheriff’s Office received a letter last month from CalPERS, for example, warning it that eight of its deputies who had been rehired out of retirement to plug the Office’s own staffing needs had worked too long in their post-retirement roles and had to either be terminated or pay back their entire pension collected to date.
According to the Niger Edwards, the county’s director of human resources, CalPERS said the deputies had only a three-year limit in which they could both collect their pension and a paycheck.
A state law was passed specifically to address the planned law enforcement agreement between Solano County and Vallejo that would let such retirees work longer, but it only cleared the way for those retired deputies to work more than a yearly limit. The state law did not address the overall three-year limit that threatened to increase the sheriff’s hiring needs for the Vallejo patrols from 17 to 25 deputies, something Ferrara said at the June 24 meeting would only make it harder to be ready by January 1.
A lack of ready patrol cars and the Deputy Sheriff’s Association’s concerns of overstretching staff within the Sheriff’s Department also presented other obstacles to the plan.
Since then, Ferrara said the county had “resolved the CalPERS issue,” but was still working with the Deputy Sheriff’s Association to get everything straightened out.
“I think we’re close,” Ferrara said of getting approval from the union.
Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce was the only member of the public who spoke on the topic at the meeting.
“This will cut our response times in half and have a really positive impact on our ability to recruit and retain officers, which then is going to move our entire county forward,” Sorce said.
Sorce suggested supervisors pass an agreement at the meeting that would be conditional on the Deputy Sheriff’s Association’s potential approval at a later date.
Supervisors did not pass such an agreement but did give city staff the authority to start buying cars that would be used for services in the agreement between the two jurisdictions.