Former Assistant Orange County Sheriff Jack Anderson made a surprise appearance this afternoon at the board of supervisors meeting, promoting an idea to remove county jails from the sheriff’s department’s control and establish a new correctional agency to run them instead.

Anderson was speaking during public comments at the end of today’s meeting, and his three-minute time limit ran out before he could finish describing his proposal: Remove 95 percent of jail guards and replace them with non-sworn officers.

You might remember that former Sheriff Mike Carona appointed Anderson in 2008 when he resigned. (An earlier version of this post erroneously said Anderson was appointed by supervisors.)

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The county is taking another look at creating an independent medical examiner’s office to manage the crime lab.

At the request Tuesday of Supervisor John Moorlach, county executives said they would re-examine the pros and cons of creating the new office in light of a National Academy of Sciences report that concludes forensic labs should be independent of law enforcement and prosecution. County CEO Tom Mauk said the review would be done by the end of the year.

“If we’re doing all right the way it is, that’s great to know,” Moorlach added.

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A $2 million grant for the county’s crime lab will allow investigators to expand the use of DNA to solve property crimes and help reduce the turn around time for processing DNA.

That’s according to a presentation today by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, who oversees the DNA portion of the county’s crime lab alongside the sheriff and county CEO.

“This is a big step,” Rackackas said.

The money will pay for four forensic scientists, a legal property technician, a property technician and an office specialist, as well as buy new equipment such as laser swab cutters, extraction robots and software data analysis system. Rackauckas said the cash will give the crime lab the capacity to analyze more samples for high-volume property crime cases from 3,800 cases in 2008 to 26,000 in 2011.

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Supervisors this morning gave the go-ahead to plans for staffing a new type of non-sworn jail guards despite protest from the  sheriff’s union president who said the plans could compromise the safety of inmates and guards.

Supervisors voted 4-1 to move forward with the program — part of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens’ plan to trim costs by replacing sworn deputies at the jails with less expensive civilians. Today’s vote gave a blessing for the department’s plan to staff the first 50 Correctional Services Assistant jobs and assign a general representation unit under the Orange County Employees Association.

UPDATED 10/7/09: Chip Monaco, chief of staff for Chairwoman Pat Bates, called this afternoon to clarify the supervisor’s position. She voted against moving forward, and Monaco said the supervisor was concerned that putting the new guards in a non-public safety bargaining unit. She wanted to evaluate union claims that jail workers would have more protections and the county’s liability would be reduced if the new guards were represented by the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.

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Sheriff Sandra Hutchens told Orange County supervisors today that she’s laying off eight of her highest-ranking advisers to save investigators from getting the axe.

“It’s a difficult time, but at the end of the day you have to think of what’s best for the department and best for public safety,” Hutchens said.

Hutchens plans to notify the top brass, including two assistant sheriffs and six captains, in August. None have volunteered or been notified yet, and none are eligible for demotions. If not her command staff,  Hutchens would have laid off 16 investigators.

“I believe very strongly that would have impacted our front line services, so I decided to cut at the top,” Hutchens said.

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Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens plans to lay off two assistant sheriffs and six captains to help rein in department expenses, according to a draft presentation about her cost-cutting plans obtained by the Register.

Supervisors asked that Hutchens explain how she plans to carry out some $28 million in budget cuts when they were told at last week’s meeting that  she hadn’t begun laying off employees. Departments across the county were forced to trim when supervisors adopted this year’s budget in June, but the sheriff’s department took the biggest hit. Supervisors say that’s because Hutchens didn’t cut as deeply earlier in the year, when other departments were furloughing and laying off employees.

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