With some guaranteed state funding, members of the Riverbank City Council approved the expenditure of the fiscal year 2013-2014 Supplemental Law Enforcement Services Fund (SLESF) with a 5-0 vote at their recent council meeting. The SLESF is a grant the state awards Police and Sheriff’s Departments in a minimum amount of $100,000. The approval of the expenditure of the SLESF will offset the cost of a sworn Deputy Sheriff position in the city.

According to Chief Erin Kiely, Riverbank Police Services started the current fiscal year with a SLESF fund balance of $57,704.72 and the city will receive an additional $100,000 for a total of $157,704.72 that is available to spend. Kiely recommended that the city council authorize the expenditure of these funds to offset the cost of one sworn Deputy Sheriff position in the amount of $120,341. The balance will then be carried over into the next fiscal year.

In the staff report submitted by Kiely, he added that the legislation requires that the council hold a public hearing on the Police Chief’s request for the expenditure of the funds and act upon his request and the hearing be held “separate and apart from the process applicable to the proposed allocations of the city general fund.” The Public Hearing Notice was published in the Riverbank News on Nov. 6 and the public hearing was on Nov. 25 at the regular Riverbank City Council meeting. The SLESF fund is generated from statewide sales and use tax and distributed by the State Controller.

The legislature’s condition on the expenditure of the SLESF funds is that the jurisdiction receiving the funding “shall appropriate the moneys exclusively to fund front line municipal police services in accordance with written request submitted by the chief of police.”

For Riverbank, that means one more deputy on the streets, helping enforce the laws and striving to keep the community a safer place to live and work.