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Our County by Lynda Hopkins - 5th District Supervisor - July 2018

Whew. After one week of deliberations, the Board of Supervisors has ratified the county’s 2018-19 operating and capital budget, totaling $1.68 billion. Looking toward the future with the hope of rebuilding our County after last fall’s horrific fire, we approved a strategic budget that will help us ride out our current storm while also preparing for challenges we anticipate and expect in the future.

The approval of our budget wasn’t without sacrifice (or tears or hunger pangs or late nights). To make up for financial losses accrued by the fires, new service demands created by the fires, and to close the 2017-2018 fiscal budget, we had to tap into our General Fund Reserves—a measure that hasn’t been taken since the Recession. On top of the massive recovery needs, our County faced cuts in behavioral health accessibility and services. And yes, our ballooning pension challenges continue to pose budget challenges and siphon money away from the General Fund. (While we have enacted pension reform, it will take us years to overcome the financial hurdles created by past promises.)

Ultimately, our County departments and agencies were faced with less flexibility to respond to operational needs; many asked for more money than they were allocated. For the first time ever, we asked department heads to align their budgets with their actual expenses from past years. This resulted in a structurally balanced County budget for the first time—but also much less room for error.

The future budget projections do not look great. We’re staring down a $10 million deficit every year into the foreseeable future. It’s a chilling picture and reality, and we are going to have to make very careful and calculated decisions from here on out. But I’m confident, with the steps we took during this year’s budget deliberations, that we’re headed in the right direction.

In order to make the big investments we talked about during this past week—investments in affordable housing, maintenance of our regional parks systems, fire and emergency services and mental health—we’re going to have to look at new revenue sources. Many departments floated the idea of taxes or bonds, an effective sustainable method of securing long term funding. That said, we know that the public’s appetite for tax measures is limited, no matter the import. (Just ask my girls how I react when they’re both asking me for a million things at once).

But our budget, believe or not, wasn’t all doom and gloom. We were able to backfill much of a projected $19 million shortfall in the Department of Health Services—avoiding drastic proposed cuts in mental health and drug abuse staffing, programs and nonprofits. Our solution includes $16.9 million in one-time funds coming from multiple resources, include state refunds, transfers from other departments and former redevelopment dollars. I am relieved we were able to stave off a drastic cut in services, reducing the number of layoffs. In addition, the proposed cut to our mental health agencies and nonprofit partners was reduced from $9 million to $3.1 million. Over the course of the next two years, during which DHS will receive this backfill, we are pushing the department to make some major changes in effort to better balance its budget. Those changes include an overhaul of the mental health division, establishing a psychiatric health facility and considering a 2020 ballot measure to help fund some of the more pressing issues DHS deals with, including mental health, substance abuse and homeless services. In good news for West County, the newly approved Department of Health Services includes a Mobile Support Team that will run along the lower Russian River for the first time ever. This will enable mental health clinicians to come at a moment’s notice to make sure that people in crisis get the help they need. The Mobile Support Team works hand in hand with law enforcement, and can facilitate 5150s and transport to our Crisis Stabilization Unit.

Unrelated to this year’s budget, but discussed midway through the hearings, my colleagues gave me approval to work with Regional Parks, the Department of Transportation and Public Works and county counsel to unlock roughly $4.5 million of quarry mitigation funds set aside for transportation infrastructure improvements in Forestville. Currently, these funds are linked to specific projects, including intersection improvements at Highway 116 and Mirabel, Covert, River, and Mirabel Roads. That’s the key: currently, these high dollar (I’m talking tens of millions) projects aren’t going to be completed unless we find a magical suitcase of money on the sidewalk. My hope is that we can fund smaller projects first—directing these funds toward projects that have been identified as priorities by the Forestville community, including bike and pedestrian improvements and new crosswalks in downtown.

I’m also pleased to report we were able to continue our community improvement programs grants this year with tax money generated by tourism. In West County, the Board of Supervisors allocated a little more than $345,000 — roughly 20 percent—of the available funding to West County chambers of commerce, visitor centers, community nonprofits and events. In addition, we allocated more than $2.6 million to Regional Parks for operations and maintenance of existing facilities. Regional Parks also received an additional $1 million from Measure L funding toward support of new facilities and parks. $1 million of Measure L funds were also given to fire and emergency services and another $1 million to the Department of Transportation and Public Works for roads repair and improvements.

Under a new tourism impact program, we were able to direct significant dollars to several West County fire districts for critical equipment and training needs, and also fund pedestrian improvement projects in Occidental and Sebastopol. Many communities who are directly impacted by tourism have long felt that those dollars have not been coming back to them from the county. While most counties in the state and most of our local cities put these tax dollars into their general fund, we are excited to put some of this money directly back into the local communities that generate the tourist dollars.

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