SACRAMENTO — Sacramento County leaders have approved a new budget, and they’re making millions in spending cuts. But there’s only one full-time employee who’s actually permanently losing his job, and he doesn’t even get a paycheck.
It’s the dog days of Kernul’s career. The nine-year-old chocolate lab is an agriculture detection dog with the county.
His job is to help protect California crops by sniffing out fruit and other plants that can carry invasive insects and disease.
“He will find a lot more stuff that people are smuggling in than a person,” said Michelle King with the county K-9 inspection team.
King is Kernul’s handler. The pair spends their days inspecting packages coming into the Post Office and other shipping facilities across the Sacramento region.
But Sacramento County is facing an $18 million general fund deficit, and on Wednesday, the board of supervisors voted to eliminate 44 full-time positions.
And while all the humans will be offered other vacant jobs, Kernul is the only county employee actually being laid off.
“It was heartbreaking, very heartbreaking,” King said. “I had a really hard time handling it.”
Detector dogs are capable of clearing up to 8,000 parcels a day. Kernul’s top finds include an illegal mango tree shipment from Puerto Rico, and guava fruit from Florida infested with Caribbean fruit flies.
Funding for Kernul’s position had come from the state, but that money is now being reallocated.
“The decision was made recently to more evenly distribute the K-9s throughout California,” said Kevin Martyn, the county’s chief deputy agricultural commissioner.
King will continue being an inspector with Sacramento County, but now she’ll no longer have her loyal partner by her side.
The county has looked into getting grants or other sources of funding to save Kernul’s job, but as of right now, his last day of employment will be in December.
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