The Supervisors have scheduled another budget discussion for next Tuesday. From the looks of the “presentation” the CEO and her staff have prepared, the dismal (both financially and managerially) picture hasn’t changed much. CEO Antle says that the departments have reduced their budget requests by about $625k against a deficit that she says is somewhere between $9 million and $17 million depending on how much one-time money is applied. Antle doesn’t say which departments contributed to the small budget request reductions. All she offers is the painfully muddled claim that the reductions “include held vacancies and reductions in services and supplies.” But much of that reduction is being eroded by the ongoing delay of the apparent cost cutting measures to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars for each week of delay. No budget reduction targets or mandates have been imposed on the departments.
Antle also mentions a resignation/retirement incentive program that would pay people to quit or retire. A few senior people did that last year, and a few more may do it this year. The incentive program would require that the affected departments leave the vacated position vacant for at least two years. Nobody seems concerned about how that would affect the services in the affected department. This might reduce the budget deficit a bit but savings will be offset by the buyout costs.
Antle also proposes to “remove all vacant positions from the position allocation table that are not public safety (Sheriff/Jail, District Attorney, Public Defender, Alternate Defender or Probation/Juvenile Hall)…
Finally we have a list of departments that they consider “public safety.
“…or currently in recruitment as of 4/22/25, regardless of funding status.”
It’s not clear what “in recruitment” means. Is it when a job is posted? When someone is offered a job? Or when someone has been hired but is not in a County chair yet? This amounts to a de facto hiring freeze for all non-public safety departments. Again, there’s no concern about the impact of such a freeze on department operations. Nor is there an estimate of how much money this might save.
Besides being ill-defined, a random hiring freeze like this will hit the smaller general fund departments harder than the large ones. And you can be sure that the Supervisors, the CEO’s office and the County Counsel’s office will make sure they have as many vacancies “in recruitment” as possible before any freeze kicks in.
Antle also suggests that the Board consider using Measure B money to cover some of costs of staffing the new (“mental health”) wing of the jail. There does appear to be Measure B money that was supposed to go to treatment services available. But using it for jail services is a twisted interpretation that is not what the preparers of Measure B told the voters it would be used for. But twisting voter approved promises to cover for the Board’s and the CEO’s own incompetence is nothing new in Mendocino County.
In a related agenda item the County is preparing to jack up their already high fees again, this time with an unscheduled, earlier than usual, increase, and to “Step Up Fees Over Two Years For Those Fees With Increases Greater Than 50%…” Translation: The fee increases are going to be substantial.
A LOCAL ELECTED OFFICIAL, retired from a career in government and private industry who has not followed the Supervisor follies much in the past, attended the Supervisors recent Willits budget workshop and came away shocked at the ineptitude of the Mendocino Board of the Supervisors and their CEO and staff. “Noting remotely like this would EVER happen in private industry,” he declared. “The level of buck passing and ignorance was unbelievable.”
ON LINE COMMENT RE: COUNTY BUDGET DEFICIT
They have a little over two months to balance the budget. Good luck with that. Expect more games from everyone. I can help them simplify the process: With Ted saying he will not vote for a budget that includes one time funding, simply stop listening to him. With this short of time and this large of a gap, I don’t see how you balance the budget without using one time funds. This gap should have been worked out long ago. This will be a budget where the CEO will need to count to three. Why even bother listening to him? And he put himself on this sideline.
Watch as the revenue side of the balance sheet mysteriously expands, anticipated departmental fees and tax revenue estimates will quietly grow. This will be in total contradiction to the regional and national economic situation, which are both in serious and potentially catastrophic decline at the moment.
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