The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors is tasked with closing a more than $20 million budget deficit this week.
Some of the likely cuts during county budget hearings will come from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, including a program targeted at rehabilitating habitual criminal offenders in the county.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the goal of the Focused Intervention Team program is to get those offenders off the street and into drug, rehab, and mental health programs. The program had to take a break during the COVID-19 pandemic and now it is included in the proposed cuts.
However, the board voted to restore the $759,000 program if it’s fiscally possible after February.
