A county official said at this week’s board of supervisors
meeting that the county is meeting with various labor groups to try
and recoup costs that might be used by the state to balance the
budget.
HOLLISTER
A county official said at this week’s board of supervisors meeting that the county is meeting with various labor groups to try and recoup costs that might be used by the state to balance the budget.
“Your appointed department heads and most of your elected department heads are ready to step up, today, to start July 1 with a five percent salary reduction through a furlough,” County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson said.
She continued: “We are currently meeting with Service Employees International Union, we have meetings scheduled with our deputy sheriffs association, our new management people we’ve met with.
“If you were to get a full 5 percent give-back from every employee, which is probably not likely, but that would be the high end, you’re looking at somewhere about a million and a half.”
To get a balanced budget, the state may wave Proposition 1A that was enacted in 2004 to protect local government money from being spent by the state. If Sacramento legislators do decide to take money from San Benito County, it could be in the range of $955,000 to $1.6 million, as estimated by County Auditor Joe Paul Gonzalez.
The state could also take Williamson Act funds, which could be in the amount of $650,000. Williamson Act funds go toward contracts with private landowners to ensure they are used for agricultural or agricultural-related uses.
“If that happened on top of this, that’s another $650,000 loss to us, of local discretionary dollars. It would be gigantic,” Thompson said.
All told, the county could have a budget deficit of $700,000, which could be made up by voluntary furloughs and salary concessions.
“If we don’t have the ability to achieve a balanced budget with that kind of effort, then I will have to bring your board reductions in skilled positions because right now, in the budget numbers I gave you, all of the vacant positions that have need for general funds are eliminated,” Thompson said.
She asked the board to “give me the opportunity to let (the budget) unfold a little while.” Thompson then asked that the budget hearings be held off until Aug. 3.
Originally, the budget was supposed to be released on May 27 so the public would have time to review the budget and hearings could begin on June 9. If the county decided to roll the budget over to the next fiscal year, the board would have to meet in late June and approve the rollover of the current year’s budget. This would put the county in what Thompson called a “serious holding pattern.” The county would not make any major purchases or hire any new employees.
Thompson received support from the board members regarding holding off budget talks. Supervisor Anthony Botelho said he would like to move forward with “good numbers” to move the budget hearings to later in June.
“You certainly have my support to move forward with good numbers rather than do the work twice.”
Supervisor Pat Loe also agreed that waiting would be the “best thing.”
“I think the best thing we can do is kind of wait for it to settle. We need to have numbers that are correct before we even start talking about a budget and start talking about how we are going to balance it.
