Council Approved $1.8 Million County Reimbursement for Police Gang Unit Positions
The City Council voted in February 2024 to authorize reimbursement of seven Fresno Police Department staff positions assigned to county-run gang and probation enforcement teams, using taxpayer money flowing from the state’s prisoner-release program. The County of Fresno will reimburse up to $1,773,531 for fiscal year 2023-24 to cover five police officers, one sergeant, and one crime analyst working on the Adult Compliance Team (ACT) and Multi-Agency Gang Enforcement Consortium (MAGEC).
The arrangement stems from Assembly Bill 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011, which shifted supervision of convicted criminals released from state prison to county probation departments. The state allocated funding to counties through Community Corrections Partnership Boards to handle the new responsibility. Fresno County’s board established the Adult Compliance Team, and Fresno police have been part of it since October 2011.
The city and county first formalized the arrangement in January 2016 with one officer assigned. By November 2016, the agreement expanded to add two more officers and a sergeant.
The Breakdown
- The County of Fresno reimburses the City of Fresno for seven police department staff assigned to ACT/MAGEC enforcement teams.
- The reimbursement covers up to $1,773,531 in taxpayer money for fiscal year 2023-24.
- The positions are five police officers, one sergeant, and one crime analyst.
- The Adult Compliance Team was created in response to AB 109, which moved supervision of released state prisoners to county probation departments.
- Fresno police have participated in ACT since October 2011, with the arrangement formalized and expanded in 2016.
What This Means for You
This reimbursement arrangement affects how Fresno’s police resources are deployed and who pays for them. The City Council authorized this agreement in February 2024, deciding that city police staff would work on these county enforcement teams with the county providing reimbursement funding.
What to Watch
The material does not state how many people the seven-officer team supervised, how many arrests it made, what results it produced, or what else $1.8 million of taxpayer money could have funded instead. That is a real number — $1,773,531 — and the public has no independently documented accounting of what it bought.
The reimbursement model also raises the question of who actually controls these officers’ priorities. They work for the city but are paid by the county using state money tied to AB 109’s prisoner-release policy. If the county’s enforcement focus doesn’t match what Fresno residents need, or if state funding dries up, does the city continue the staffing or cut it? The material gives no answer.
Who benefits? The County of Fresno gets enforcement capacity it doesn’t have to hire and train itself. The City of Fresno gets reimbursed for positions it’s already staffing, though the material doesn’t say whether the reimbursement covers the full cost or whether the city absorbs any gap.
The state gets to say it funded local supervision of released prisoners. What’s missing is any measure of whether residents are safer, whether AB 109’s approach works, or whether this money could have done more good elsewhere. The records that would answer that — arrest data, recidivism rates, budget comparisons — are not in the material.
