Dozens of county employees and their union rep Patrick Hickey showed up at the Supervisors’ Tuesday morning budget hearing to ask that the County at least include a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) in next fiscal year’s budget. After a few hours of disorganized and truncated discussion, including a couple of serious options as well as some very trivial ones, the Board agreed with CEO Antle that if they included a COLA there was no way to balance next year’s budget. To us, the employees seemed exhausted and demoralized, having already accepted the fact that there would be no raises next year, arguing only for a small cost of living adjustment to help the remaining employees keep up with inflation.
Topics discussed included use of more volunteers to replace county workers at some positions, use of GPS devices in County vehicles, fewer vehicles and more use of county garage/motor pool vehicles, reductions in facilities (nobody had any specific ideas), a reduction in the amount allocated to the tourism promoters, use of county reserves, the investment pool (the majority of which is money the County invests for schools and special districts), inflation rates, ongoing vacancies, layoffs, increased property and bed tax collection efforts (including using a consultant to help find and add untaxed properties to the County’s tax rolls), new/designated tax measures (that would require voter approval), increasing bed taxes on short term rentals, speeding up next year’s carryforward calculation, bumping up salaries for staffers who are paid with state and federal funds…
But for one reason or another every idea which would translate into a COLA increase for this coming fiscal year fizzled.
The Board liked the idea of hiring a consultant to help add untaxed property and buildings to the tax rolls and authorized an RFP for that purpose. But everything else dissolved in a haze of disagreements, confusion, generalities and bureaucratic obstacles, leaving County employees to status quo limbo for another year.
As far as we could tell, none of the officials in the room were on hand during the County’s last fiscal crisis back in 2008/2009. As a possible result, no one discussed or considered the unpopular measures taken at that time: Reducing office hours in most county offices with corresponding voluntary and mandatory time off and associated reductions in hours worked per week. At that time, right after former CEO Carmel Angelo was named CEO because she was the only official with the moxie to impose those steps, it was assumed that County workers who had to take cuts in their weekly hours could find side-jobs while their hourly pay remained the same. (Nobody was willing to attempt pay cuts.) Also at that time, three of the five sitting Supervisors — Carre Brown, John Pinches and John McCowen — agreed to take (mainly symbolic) voluntary pay cuts of 10% while they squeezed their employees. The two “liberal” supervisors, David Colfax and Kendall Smith, refused, insisting that they deserved their high pay despite imposing cuts on everyone else.
Fast forward to 2023 and we didn’t hear a single word about Supervisors making any sacrifices themselves or imposing any on their senior staff, all of whose salaries and generous benefits packages seem exempt from the de facto inflation-driven salary cuts they say are necessary for their employees in these tight budget times.
Meanwhile, with labor contracts expiring at the end of this month, bargaining — i.e., the County telling union reps that they have no money to spare — with the County’s eight bargaining units continues.
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How Mendo Can Balance Its Budget & provide a cost of living raise to its employees — if they were serious
Several readers have asked us how we would handle the County’s financial deficit. The situation requires a full-court press, not the kinds of timid, inconsequential nibbling the Supervisors talked about at their Tuesday budget meeting.
So here are our bullet points of how to address it:
Revenue Improvements:
• Fix the Teeter Plan so that it returns to being a revenue generator.
• Make the State pay for the Jail Expansion overrun, freeing up millions in borrowed money to replenish the general fund.
• Make the Courts pay for all county impacts that the new courthouse will create.
• Impose an increased bed tax rate on Short Term Rentals.
• Make sure all employee healthcare costs are factored into state and federal grants billings.
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Expense Reductions:
• Do a line by line review of outside lawyers and costs.
• Cut executive salaries and benefits including the Supervisors by 10% either via a direct pay cut or an hours cut.
• Eliminate the tourism subsidy.
• Postpone the toothless and bureaucratic water agency (which has not proposed any actual water storage of conservation projects anyway.)
• Reduce work/office hours in certain general fund departments.
• Eliminate the expensive labor negotiator lawyers who do nothing but say no to the union reps anyway.
• Close juvenile hall and join a regional juvenile hall facility.
• Eliminate three of the five unnecessary and redundant dispatch centers and reduce them from 5 to 2 as proposed by former Sheriff Allman years ago. (Mendo has a CHP dispatch operation, a Willits Dispatch operation, a Ukiah/Fort Bragg Dispatch operation, a Sheriff’s Dispatch operation, and a CalFire non-law enforcement dispatch center.)
• Abandon the “giant waste of dollars” (per Supervisor Gjerde) for the never to be implemented Joint Powers Authority for inland ambulances.
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Better Financial Management:
• Nail down the actual dollar amount of budget savings from vacancies department by department for next fiscal year.
• Get monthly reports on the status of tax collection efforts.
• Set up a Budget Task Force to stay on top of these efforts and report on status and success monthly.
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Use Reserves Prudently
And finally, after all those are done, borrow from the General Fund as needed to provide at least a 3% COLA for employees, scaled so that a larger COLA increase goes to non-supervisory line staff.
As of the end of Fiscal Year 2022, the General Fund Reserve was reported to be about $28 million, There has only been a half million of that allocated, and only for additional tax collection services/staff.
The General Fund is around $90 million. So the general fund reserve rate is around 31%.
A normal general fund reserve would be 10%-12%. That means there’s around $21 million available if the County ran a conventional reserve percentage.
In Sonoma County they maintain a comfortable 12% reserve and they have a policy that says that when it is used there should be a plan to replenish it over time in the following years. They do not “spend” the reserves without an accompanying replenishment/payback plan.
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Unless and until these measures are implemented, the County will continue its downward spiral of reduced revenues, escalating costs, staff loss, delays and reductions in work output, deteriorating facilities, and overall malaise in local government.
With Mendo’s current cast of unimaginative and lethargic characters — for example, does anyone seriously think that reducing vehicle mileage or turning out the lights earlier will make a noticeable dent in the deficit? — we are not holding our breath.
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CARRIE SHATTUCK: Fix the System:
Agreed. The Board of Supervisors merged the Auditor/Controller/Treasurer/Tax Collector offices last year, losing experience and while still struggling with a new software program that still isn’t functioning properly, compounding the problems. The County is losing revenue and frustrating taxpayers with tax bills that are years late and inaccurate. The A/C/T/T office is understaffed but has expressed that some of the software issues are lessening.
If your tax bill is received several years late, the Treasurer will accept a 5 year payment plan for the taxes.
There has been a history of lack of communication between the Board of Supervisors and Department heads, compounding the problems.
It’s going to take some strong leadership to support and change the dysfunction that is our County. I want to be that change and make a difference for our County. I would love to hear what your concerns are.
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PATRICK HICKEY (Service Employees International Local 1021 rep):
I appreciate Mark Scaramella’s detailed and incisive list that provides the Board of Supervisors with a roadmap of how to get us out of the current mess they have made for themselves and us.
Last Tuesday, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors rushed through a County budget, setting limits on public input, with few questions from Supervisors and very little discussion on the plans for most of the departments, which could well have serious negative impacts on the County’s ability to carry out its mandated services. If we have trouble recruiting sheriff’s deputies now, this budget will make it much worse. If we have 40% vacancies in Child Protective Services and 60% in some parts of the Assessor’s office, this budget will cement those vacancies.
We need more journalists like Mr. Scaramella to call out the Board of Supervisors and the CEO’s office out for their lack of leadership and failure to plan and prepare for moving the County forward. The CEO’s office and the Board of Supervisors have been oddly passive and seemingly sitting on their hands as this situation has developed. To many employees they appear to act like deer in the headlights. There are steps they can and should take to make sure that the funding is there to support the necessary staffing for the County. The CEO’s office and the Board should always be projecting a few years out to make sure they are doing what is necessary to fund services. There are resources available to get help. But the Board needs to do more than talk. They need to act. If they identify a funding stream that is not being collected, take the actions necessary to collect it. The Board has been floating ideas as if it is not their job or within their power to make these things happen. The time for excuses is over, County residents expect results.
More and more, the County is finding itself in a dangerous spiral. There are high vacancy rates in some instances because they don’t pay enough. They are slow in collecting revenue or not able to bill for services because of the high vacancy rates, which in turn leads to reduced funds to offer market rate wages. The Board has fretted about this predicament, but done little to address it.
Instead of proposing solutions, the CEO’s office and the Board present excuses. Rural counties throughout California struggle with many of the same challenges that Mendocino faces. There are examples out there about what Mendocino can do. We need the CEO’s office and the Board to put forward a real plan that puts the County on a path of sustainability with market rate positions to carry out the mandated services provided by the County.
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