Among the Third Quarter Budget Adjustments reported by the CEO’s financial staff for this fiscal year is this one from Human Resources: “862189, Contracts, Adjust Request: $72,902.00, Adopted Budget: $253,515.00, New Total: $326,417.00. Increase due to contracts not anticipated.”
There you go! Perfectly clear. $73k in a Human Resources contract was “not anticipated.” Was it approved? We don’t know. Was it necessary? We don’t know. Why wasn’t it “anticipated”? We don’t know. Who approved it? We don’t know.
Further down the HR adjustment list we found:
“826390 Other Charges ($450,583.00) ($299,149.00) ($749,732.00). Increase in revenue due to direct billing calculation changes - charges to Social Service were not originally budgeted.”
Almost half a million magically appears! Apparently it was “not budgeted.” Is Mendo still spending General Fund to cover some overhead costs associated with state and federal grants?
Also among the larger HR adjustments we found:
“862189 Prof & Spec Svcs-Other ($714,713.73) $3,947,018.65 $3,232,304.92. Adjustment For Actual Expenditures.”
Over $700k of a “CN Grant” for “Prof & Spec Svcs-Other” was not spent. Why not? Did the money go back to the state or something?
This is what passes in Mendo for budget information. While the basic reporting is a step forward, you might think that some of the larger “adjustments” that are not just moving money from one pocket to another would be explained a little better than this. But no. No one seems interested in such trivial reporting basics.
Tuesday’s budget/financial package included a “Year-to-Date Budget Report-General Fund” for the first three quarters of the fiscal year (i.e., July 2024 to March 2025) which is a reasonable and long-overdue attempt to summarize departmental budget status, for the first time in recent memory. In general, most departments appear to be running close to budget for the first three quarters, although expenses for January to March are not yet closed in the County’s financial system. This, despite a net 4% increase in salaries that kicked in this year which are expected to go up almost 10% more next year.
It’s hard to assess the CEO’s office budget because it now includes multiple “departments” which are budgeted separately, but are effectively managed as a group out of the CEO’s office: Clerk of the Board, Fleet Management, Central Services, Fiscal Services, Payroll Administration, Economic Development, Retirement Administration, etc. Human Resources is a separate budget, but it is being managed by a CEO staffer.
There’s also an unexplained $1.5 million “miscellaneous budget,” much of which appears to be for employees, “auditing & fiscal services,” and “payments to other government agencies.”
The Sheriff’s department’s patrol division (excluding the jail) representing a large chunk of the General Fund is reported to be running overbudget at about 85%, where it should be under 75% at this point. No explanation is offered. This might be partially explained by one-time expenses, but they are not itemized. Another possible explanation could be a mystery line item at about $2.7 million called “operating transfer in” which is running at only 23% of budget, which may mean that some Sheriff’s department revenue has not yet been put into the Sheriff’s revenue budget, thus skewing the percentage calculation. There are no other Sheriff’s department line items that appear to be significantly overbudget.
A similar, but slightly worse, pattern appears in the jail budget, another large part of the General Fund. While Patrol overtime is running near budget, jail overtime is running about 85%, about 10% over what it was expected for the first nine months of the fiscal year. The Sheriff told the Board of Supervisors recently that a significant factor in jail overtime is the extra time involved in transporting increasing numbers of arrestees and inmates to and from the hospital for various medical or drug-related conditions prior to and after booking and the associated wait times that accompany such travel.
Perhaps the most surprising item in the departmental rundown is the Juvenile Hall budget, now estimated to cost over $4 million per year for a couple dozen delinquents with about $2.2 million spent so far this year. Surely, there must be a cheaper way to do this. A few years ago consideration was given to shutting down the Hall and sending the few delinquents — typically fewer than a couple dozen — to neighboring counties. When a few locals complained that it would move the delinquents farther from their homes and families, that idea was dropped. But $4 million a year for the luxury of keeping a few delinquents in County seems wastefully high.
The County’s revenue report shows an increase in property tax revenues year over year since 2019/2020 which probably reflects routine property sales and associated increasing re-assessments. In 2019/2020 Property tax revenues for the County were almost $36 million. In 2024/2025 the projection is about $46.5 million. However, sales taxes over the same time have only increased from about $6.6 million in 2019/2020 to about $7 million in 2024/2025 which is a significant reduction in buying power due to inflation. A lot of this is likely a reflection of the drop off in the marijuana industry and associated retail activity, especially in fuel and vehicles, historically the biggest contributors to local sales tax receipts.
Assistant DA got a raise as well. Deserved from what I have seen so far compared with the top dog.