Deputies Do Duty in Construction : Law Enforcement: Four officers are assigned to work on the sheriff’s new headquarters in a move designed to save money.

Three San Diego County sheriff’s deputies and a lieutenant have been pulled from their regular duties for six weeks to do construction work in preparation for the department’s move from downtown San Diego to Kearny Mesa.

The reassignment, defended by top sheriff’s administrators as a way to save money, comes at a time when Sheriff Jim Roache has complained that severe budget problems have left him with too few deputies to patrol the streets or staff the jails.

“No deputy should be doing this sort of work, but we have no choice,” said Assistant Sheriff Mel Nichols. “We are saving the taxpayers’ money, so this is really money well spent.”

Lt. Daniel Canfield, watch commander of the Central Jail, is supervising a three-man work crew consisting of Deputies Rich Richardson, John Pollak and Jeff Duckworth.

Richardson and Pollak usually work at the East Mesa medium-security jail, supervising inmates in the work-release program. Duckworth is a canine handler who works patrol out of the Lemon Grove substation.

The four officers began work March 23 on the 71,400-square-foot building on Ridgehaven Court next to Interstate 15 in Kearny Mesa and are expected to be finished April 31.

The building, vacated by General Dynamics, is being used so that scattered sheriff’s offices throughout the county can be housed in one area.

The deputies have been tearing down walls, putting up framing for drywall and building a foundation for file cabinets. Canfield, a licensed electrician, has been doing much of the wiring.

Nichols described Pollak and Richardson as “accomplished carpenters” and said Duckworth had been in charge of a maintenance crew at the County Jail in Chula Vista. The construction is being supervised by members of the county Department of General Services to see that it conforms with all building codes.

Eventually, the four men will be moving files from the downtown offices at 222 West C St. to the Ridgehaven address, Nichols said.

Nichols, who has been overseeing the entire project, said he chose the four officers personally and obtained Roache’s approval after explaining the cost savings.

Sheriff’s officials approached county General Services to do the work and were quoted a price of $700,000 to entirely remodel the building. They scaled back the work to what was deemed essential and pared the cost to $248,000, which included construction, design of the building and construction oversight.

The six weeks of the officers’ time is expected to cost the department about $22,000 in salary alone, Nichols said. It does not take into account other benefits that accompany each officer’s salary.

Although the county could have done the work, it would have deducted the bill from the sheriff’s budget. The department is expected to run a deficit of $4.8 million in the fiscal year ending June 30.

On Tuesday, during a tour of the three-story building conducted by Nichols for The Times, Duckworth and Richardson left the site for an hour to get supplies for some of the construction and were finished for the day by 3 p.m. They were reluctant to talk about their work. Canfield and Pollak were not at the site during the one-hour tour between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

But one longtime sheriff’s deputy, who asked not be named, said he was infuriated by the decision to use sworn officers to work at the new building.

“This is manual labor,” he said. “We’re public safety officers, not construction workers. We just don’t have the manpower to be doing construction work.”

Nichols acknowledged that the jails and county patrols are understaffed but said the department has the manpower to fill the jobs that the four officers temporarily abandoned.

Sheriff’s officials said it is not unusual for deputies to use their handiwork on projects that range from improvements to the sheriff’s training center to adding second beds when they double-bunk county jails.

“We have used deputy sheriffs for years to get things done,” Nichols said. “They do building construction and maintenance repair and even have built toilets in one of the jails. We’re so poor around here that we have to do it somehow.”

Inmate labor is also used for various tasks, such as cutting brush on the grounds around the new building.

The Sheriff’s Department refused Tuesday to provide ages or dates of hire for any of the four officers, saying the information is protected by state confidentiality laws.

Sheriff’s spokesman Dan Greenblat said taxpayers “should be cheering” over the department’s decision to use deputies for the construction work because it could not be done otherwise.

“What we’ve done is heroic,” Greenblat said. “This department is going to be able to make the move it is because of a positive, can-do attitude. This is an achievement-oriented department.”

Much of the department will be moved into the new headquarters by early June. The county is purchasing the building for $6 million, and the department is using $1 million confiscated in drug raids to pay on the mortgage.

The county is trying to get all departments out of lease arrangements as a way to save money. The Sheriff’s Department spends about $350,000 a year to lease a number of work locations for its deputies.