After last week's inaugural State of the County, there was plenty to look forward to but also plenty for people to wonder about including questions about balancing the budget.
Homelessness and housing are key concerns moving forward, the most immediate concern for the county officials was the budget deficit which is currently $22.2 million.
County administrative officer Rebecca Campbell is one of the people tasked with figuring out how to handle the budget deficit. She said there are a few reasons that led to the county being in a hole.
“We did have some reductions in some of our revenues related to state revenues and to local revenues that come in. Also, increases in expenses.”
To fix it, the county will be recommending a combination of long-term and short-term reductions.
In the short term, strategies include using $3.3 million of Reserve funds, reducing Contingency by $1.8 million, and $2.9 million in other one-time short-term budget reduction strategies which include reallocated housing/homeless ARPA funds and money from deferred automation projects.
“The board has been wise to set aside reserves," Campbell said. "That is going to help us weather this storm.”
In the long-term, there’s no way around it, there will be budget cuts across all departments with public protection and health and human service departments staying relatively unaffected but instead of layoffs, Campbell said they will be recommending a greying out period for 20 full-time positions.
“Basically [we'll be] holding positions vacant and not funding those positions right now. We've got about 20 that we're looking at across the county and so hopefully in time things will catch up.”
Last year’s budget deficit was much smaller at $5.1 million but factors such as state funding, lower local revenues and other county issues are being blamed for pushing the deficit further.
“Our goal is to minimize any impact on the community and to still be able to get our operations done.”
Campbell and other county officials will submit their recommended budget plan for the 2024-2025 fiscal year to the Board of Supervisors June 3.
