The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors approved the hiring of a juvenile detention officer and a criminal prosecutor despite continuing financial hard times and trailing revenues.

Chairman John Maynard (Dist. 3) and Rudy Molera (Dist. 2) voted Wednesday to fill the vacancies. Supervisor Manuel Ruiz (Dist. 1) voted “No.”

The detention officer will be paid about $29,152 annually, or $561 per week. The county prosecutor’s salary is $58,204 per year, or $1,119 per week.

“Everybody else is cutting back in the state except Santa Cruz County,” Ruiz said. “We keep hiring people.”

The county spends the largest percentage of its general fund on salaries and benefits, Ruiz said. In an interview, Finance Director Jennifer St. John said the figure is about 65 percent, or about $1.7 million per month and $19.9 million per year.

For him to vote “yes,” it would have to be a position “that’s life and death,” Ruiz said.

The county has had a hiring freeze since the late 1980s or early 1990s, but the supervisors usually vote to lift the freeze so a department can fill a vacancy. Ruiz voted with the other supervisors on Oct. 7 to fill a vacant 911 dispatcher job.

Sheriff Antonio Estrada argued the case on Wednesday for hiring a juvenile detention officer. “We can’t afford to not fill these vacant positions,” he said. “We’re dealing with more crime.”

Superior Court supervises juvenile detention, but the funds come out of the jail district, Estrada said in an interview. He made the request on behalf of Tivo Romero, chief probation officer, who was on vacation.

Ruiz repeated the gloomy financial news that St. John delivered a week earlier.

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2009-2010 (July-September), county revenues dropped $400,000 from last year, St. John said. The county used $6 million of its $10.5 million rainy day fund to balance the current budget, but at this pace, will be about $2 million short going into the 2010-2011 year.

“That assumes expenses don’t go up and revenues stay the same,” St. John said in an interview.

At the Wednesday meeting, St. John said revenues for the jail district, which come from a half-cent sales tax, had dropped 17 percent during the first quarter. The jail district helps pay for the $47 million jail under construction on the east side of the county complex hill. A courts building is going up at the same time.

“The jail district pays for expenditures until it runs out of money,” St. John said. Then the money comes out of the general fund.

“Because we’re building a bigger facility, the sheriff is hiring more staff,” St. John said in an interview. Those detention officers must be trained before the new jail opens in November 2010.

St. John anticipated $2.5 million in jail district revenue for this fiscal year, which began July 1, she said. Two years ago, that sales tax generated almost $3.2 million.

When the sheriff’s office and the juvenile detention department submitted their budgets, St. John added in the debt service for the construction loan, she said. The jail district was about $2 million short.

In summer 2008, the county borrowed about $60 million from the Greater Arizona Development Authority, which issued bonds to finance construction of both new buildings. The debt service is $3.2 million for the jail and just under $1 million per year for the courthouse, St. John said. The debt for the courthouse portion is paid from the general fund.

Estrada asked the supervisors to approve a federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant of $491,226 to fund six adult detention officers for two years. Several candidates are almost ready to hire, he said.

The grant is earmarked to help the county jail become a community corrections facility, Estrada said. None of those funds can be used for the juvenile center.

The county was authorized to hire by Oct. 1, but the grant was awarded Sept. 16, St. John said. Maynard asked if the county could get an extension of the two-year period if it hired the officers by Dec. 1.

“The intent of this stimulus money was to put people to work right away,” said grant writer Tanis Salant. But she promised to find out.

“We’ll definitely ask for an extension, or hire more officers,” St. John said in an interview.

The supervisors said “yes” to an ARRA grant of $457,006 to the county attorney’s office for an “intelligence-led policing” program. It would pay for a prosecutor, investigator and intelligence analyst to focus on drug cases, said Thomas O’Sullivan, chief civil deputy.

“This will help us interdict and populate the jail,” he said.

Supervisors approved another ARRA grant of $195,055 that will pay for a prosecutor and victim advocate for a Stop Violence Against Women program. They also OK’d a lease for a local building to house a new victim services office.

O’Sullivan asked to waive the hiring freeze to fill the vacant victim crime prosecutor position.

“We’ve lost three people in our office in the past three months and that affects public safety,” he said. He described those who left as “excellent attorneys” who found higher-paying jobs in Pima County.

Without this position, the remaining attorneys will be overwhelmed with criminal cases, O’Sullivan said.

Only Ruiz balked at filling the prosecutor position.

“I’ll be voting ‘no,’ but I understand,” he said.