The San Benito County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted
its budget Tuesday after spending nearly a week earlier this month
discussing all of the document’s details.
The San Benito County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted its budget Tuesday after spending nearly a week earlier this month discussing all of the document’s details.
The budget is more than $120 million, slightly less than one-third of which will consist of the General Fund that largely pays employee compensation. The budget will use $9 million in the county’s depleting reserves.
The budget also calls for eight layoffs, including the removal of the undersheriff position, and a reduction of hours for other positions in the county. Undersheriff Pat Turturici is running for sheriff in the November election against Watsonville police Lt. Darren Thompson. The undersheriff position is set for elimination in January after a new sheriff is sworn in.
To balance the budget, the board had to fill a little more than $9 million gap. To do so, the board pulled $5.3 million from general fund reserves and assigned $5 million in unassigned fund balance money from the prior year.
“The work that you did here paid off in these numbers,” County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson said.
The board considered eliminating funding for the library and eliminating the assistant county administrator.
Supervisors also increased donations to Advocacy Inc., and Jovenes de Antano by $5,000 and rejected another $20,000 request from the Economic Development Corp. to increase its allocation from $50,000 to $70,000.
Officials expressed how the cuts were difficult this year but also that the board expects it to be worse next year.
“I couldn’t sleep – I couldn’t pull the trigger knowing that I had to lay someone off,” Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz said. “Next year is going to get worse.”
Despite approving the budget, the board does expect some changes in the upcoming months.
“When we left it two weeks ago we were going to look for additional cuts and hopefully some increased revenue,” Supervisor Anthony Botelho said.
Look back for more on this topic.
