‘Kind Of A Waste Of Time’

As expected, the Supervisors were flummoxed on Tuesday by their CEO’s attempt to dump some raw staffing requests at their podium without any recommendations, budget data, or analysis.

The first item to be plopped before the Board was the District Attorney’s request to fill a couple of prosecutor vacancies and a victim-witness office staffer.

It immediately dawned on the Board that not only did they have no idea who to hire in the DA’s office, but they had no idea how much money they have or don’t have, nor do they know where the DA and the other departments stand in meeting their designated 6% budget reduction target.

When they last spoke of this subject, CEO Darcie Antle told the Board that they were seeing about 50% of the $6 million savings they had hoped for by leaving budgeted positions vacant. But, as usual, she provided no data or breakdown. Nobody asked about that on Tuesday.

Each Supervisor whined about there not being enough money to go around and not having enough budget information to approve hiring requests which would draw on the General Fund. Supervisor Ted Williams won the blather sweepstakes by repeating himself at length over and over, saying, essentially, that the County should not hire people that they can’t pay for, as if that was some kind of Jedi-inspired wisdom he alone possesses.

Supervisor Madeline Cline simply read the agenda item:

“Discussion and Possible Action Including Approval or Denial of Requests from Department Heads and Elected Officials Regarding Budget Impacts, Funding and Recruitment of Vacant or New Positions Following the Strategic Hiring Process…”

Apparently, only Supervisor Cline had noticed the part about “budget impacts,” and “funding.”

CEO Antle admitted that she could provide budget versus actual budget data on salaries for each department, which — ahem — was the whole point of the discussion. But she didn’t offer it to the Board.

Assistant DA Scott McMenomey told the Board that he couldn’t say what the DA’s budget status was. So the Board tabled the DA’s requests until next month.

County Assessor-Clerk-Recorder Katrina Bartolomie opened her remarks by apologizing for even having to be there to ask for a couple of assessor’s office vacancy hires; Then, after hearing the Board moan and groan about not having budget info, she accurately added, “So, this is kind of a waste of time.”

But her staff had done some of their own budget analysis and the Board approved her modest staffing request.

The Board also approved new hires for public health because the positions were non-General Fund. A couple of new library hires were approved after it was explained to the Supervisors (again — are they children? deaf?) that the positions would be funded by the Library sales tax increment, not the General Fund.

The subject was put off again for the November 4 meeting where CEO Antle promises she’ll provide the budget info she said she had and should have provided on Tuesday, but didn’t.

The Board also said they wanted to see each department’s plan for how they are going to magically cut 6% of their (general fund) budget for the current fiscal year. (Never mind that the smaller departments don’t have staffing levels that allow such precise quantitative cuts and some departments have already been cut and are now being asked to absorb additional cuts.)

Nobody, not even Supervisor Cline who had at least noted what the agenda item called for, could bring themselves to complain directly that CEO Antle had again failed to provide the Board with the obviously necessary budget status info, and that therefore Assessor Bartolomie’s “assessment” was, well, on the money.