Police Services Feasibility Study - City of Santa Paula

are incurred in providing the services so contracted or authorized. A
county shall not charge a city contracting for a particular service, either as
a direct or an indirect overhead charge, any portion of those costs which
are attributable to services made available to all portions of the county, as
determined by resolution of the board of supervisors, or which are general
overhead costs of operation of the county government. General
overhead costs, for the purpose of this section, are those costs which a
county would incur regardless of whether or not it provided a service
under contract to a city. Any determination of general overhead costs
shall be subject to court review as to the reasonableness of such
determination (GC § 51350).
Contract Costing and Methodology
An overview of contract costing methodology is offered to provide city officials
with an understanding of how annual rates for services are determined. For
instance, there are significant elements of the Sheriff’s organization that are
dedicated to countywide service and are not affected by contract cities. The
remaining units of the Department are impacted by the existence of contracts
and, therefore, a proportionate amount of the unit cost must be distributed to the
contract personnel. To arrive at these distributions, it is necessary to calculate
per person costs for support services. Budgetary information on all chargeable
units must be determined in order to identify these per person costs. In
determining the total cost to the County for providing contract services, it is
necessary to go through three independent steps: (1) Salary & Benefits (Direct);
(2) Support Services Shared Costs (Indirect); and (3) Divisional Shared Costs
(Indirect).
Support Services shared costs consist of all costs to the Department incurred as
a result of contract services, which are not included in the Divisional shared
costs. Support Services indirect charges include: Personnel Bureau, Business
Office, Administrative Support, Information Systems, Crime Analysis, Training,
and Supplies and Services/Fixed Assets.
Divisional Shared costs primarily consist of the cost for 24-hour supervision,
management, dispatching and other related support. This cost is proportionately
distributed over the total personnel working in the region, including those
assigned to the contract cities.
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