With a little cut here and some belt-tightening there, the San
Benito County Board of Supervisors approved a lean $64 million
2003-04 budget Tuesday.
Finishing a day ahead of schedule, the Board approved a final
budget that took away a little bit from nearly every department
across the board.
With a little cut here and some belt-tightening there, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved a lean $64 million 2003-04 budget Tuesday.
Finishing a day ahead of schedule, the Board approved a final budget that took away a little bit from nearly every department across the board.
Supervisor Ruth Kesler applauded the work and sacrifices that each department had to make in order to make the balanced budget work.
“Everybody in the county spent a lot of time working on this budget, and each department head knew that if they asked for too much they weren’t going to get it,” Kesler said.
She said the Board’s fiscally conservative philosophy throughout the previous years made the current budget crunch easier for this county to deal with than what some of the neighboring counties are dealing with.
“I’m very pleased that we didn’t have to lay anybody off,” Kesler said. “In Monterey and Santa Clara counties, they had to lay off a lot of people.”
The proposed budget represents a 3 percent or $1.7 million decrease from the last fiscal year’s $65.9 million budget.
The San Benito County Sheriff’s Department, the District Attorney’s Office and the Human Services Agency will all lose some personnel through this budget plan.
Most of the loss in personnel will not come from layoffs. The Board will simply not replace positions left open by employee attrition. The positions will technically remain on the books but will not be funded.
The District Attorney’s Office is slated to lose one of its investigator positions, but District Attorney John Sarsfield said his office has worked out an agreement with Sheriff Curtis Hill to share a detective from his department.
The sheriff’s department is losing a total of six full-time people, two from its patrol division and four correctional officers from the county jail.
The Human Services Agency will lose a total of 11 full-time people, several of whom were laid-off in June when the grant funding for their jobs ran out. The savings from the empty positions will be put to use supplementing the General Fund and paying for other services, sometimes within the same department.
“These were some very tough decisions we had to make,” Supervisor Bob Cruz said.
County Administrative Officer Gil Solorio said the county’s budget concerns may not be over because of the late passage of the state’s budget.
“It is conceivable that the Board could have to make additional adjustments to the budget in September,” he said.
He said the adjustments might be necessary because no one is certain how the state’s budget is going to effect local governments just yet.
