At the end of June, the Board of Supervisors voted to approve the County's $777 million budget. The budget reflects our priorities and values, and this year's budget continued to focus on the areas that residents have prioritized. While mostly a status quo budget, the Board voted to increase our funding for roads with the help of Measure D and SB1. We also set aside one-time funding for the Community Action Board, Barrios Unidos, Encompass and for Community Bridges' Meals on Wheels. We approved funding for a new program focused on downtown Santa Cruz called Homeless Outreach and Proactive Services (HOPES) that seeks to find supportive services for those in our community in need of mental health or substance use disorder services.

 

The budget reflects the work that the Board has committed to do in strengthening the County's financial foundation. Our Board voted five years ago to triple our reserves to ensure we had adequate resources to ride out the next storm, whether it comes from nature or is man-made. We set out to do it in seven years and accomplished it in five years. This committed fiscal prudence resulted in our credit rating improving to its highest level, which in turn will mean lower costs whenever we have to borrow money. We have reduced our structural imbalance from a high of $12 million to around $5 million. On our continued path, we will retire two-thirds of the County's debt in the next ten years. We have worked to continue to reduce costs and this year we undertook a major solar installation at all County facilities. In addition to reducing our carbon footprint, this investment will save us over $25 million over the next 20 years. Lastly, we led the state in working with our employees to reduce future pension and health care liability costs by signing new agreements that save us over $150 million in the next thirty years. In a signal of how difficult it is to achieve these successes, our neighbor to the south, Monterey County, faced a $36 million deficit and laid off over 100 employees this year.

 

During budget hearings we heard a number of ideas and plans that could benefit our county but for which we don't have resources at this moment. We heard about new program possibilities that deal with issues addressing homelessness and ideas for more effective strategies to address the needs of the significant number people experiencing mental health issues in our community. We also heard about improvements needed to the physical infrastructure at our parks, libraries and county facilities. We asked our County Administrative Officer to return at our first meeting in August with funding strategies that will help accomplish these critical goals. We have shown that by working together we can accomplish many goals. I look forward to continuing this discussion with the community as we further our work to address unmet needs in the unincorporated county.

 

1. Via U.S. Postal Service to Pure Water Soquel Project CEQA, 4041 Soquel Drive, Ste. A-501, Soquel, CA 95073-3105; 
2. Via email ( purewatersoquelceqa@esassoc.com) 
3. At the Public Meeting being held on July 31, 2018