Santa Clara County supervisors Ken Yeager and Liz Kniss are
urging their colleagues to dip into disaster reserves to restore
some of the cuts in a painful county budget hobbled by a $227
million deficit.
Morgan Hill – Santa Clara County supervisors Ken Yeager and Liz Kniss are urging their colleagues to dip into disaster reserves to restore some of the cuts in a painful county budget hobbled by a $227 million deficit.
Arguing this week the cuts to mental health, drug and alcohol and public nurse programs warrant the use of “rainy day” funds, the two supervisors said they’d be willing to reduce the proposed $87 million budget reserve fund for fiscal year 2007-08 by as much as $20 million to keep some services available for needy residents.
“It’s impossible to tell what the economic condition will be next year, but I’m willing to spend additional dollars now,” Yeager said Wednesday afternoon in a phone interview, following an agonizing three days of budget hearings. “If the picture is just as gloomy next year, then we’ll make appropriate decisions again when we face them.”
Supervisor Don Gage called the idea of using emergency funds “dangerous” and fiscally irresponsible.
“These funds are for disasters … an earthquake, a terrorist attack, a pandemic … for one-time expenses,” Gage said. “I know it would ease the pain (to dip into reserves), and I don’t like making cuts, but we need to find permanent sources of revenue to maintain our services.”
Supervisor Blanca Alvarado said she is adamantly opposed to dipping into reserves, an idea she considers a “quick fix” with projected deficits extending three years.
“We are at a place right now if we have a major disaster we cannot rely on the national guard” to meet all of our needs, Alvarado said. “It is hard to predict what can happen, but we cannot be so sure something will not happen and dip into our reserves in order to make political decisions that are going to have long-term consequences … leaving us vulnerable in a way that will make it more difficult to respond to a crisis.”
Under a plan brought forward by Supervisor Pete McHugh in February 2004, the county has gradually stepped up its emergency funds from 2 percent of general fund revenues to 4.7 percent today. The proposed fiscal year 2008 budget maintains that level.
Setting the contingency reserve for the upcoming fiscal year is part of the budget-approval process requiring a three-fifths vote. The five supervisors are expected to adopt a budget June 15 after a week of final budget hearings beginning June 11 at the county government building in San Jose.
The recommended spending plan totals nearly $3.8 billion with a $2.2 billion general fund. The challenge this year has been to close an unprecedented $227 million general fund shortfall caused by dwindling state and federal revenues.
As supervisors urge residents to lobby state and federal officials to fund health-care programs, the board has also expressed interest in asking voters to approve a half-cent sales tax in 2008.
The county’s proposed budget, released earlier this month, asks departments to cut $145 million and lay off about 480 employees. As a result, some of those mostly affected by the cuts would be 6,000 adults and nearly 800 children who would lose access to mental health services.
“I think all of us feel these are serious cuts,” said Bruce Copely, deputy director of Santa Clara County Mental Health Department. “The concern is that many of these people who would lose services will wind up roaming the street or in jails or hospitals.”
The proposed budget also eliminates one-third of the county’s public nurses, which will result in 4,500 residents not receiving care and referral services.
“The biggest impact is going to be access,” said Joy Alexiou, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. “People will have little or no access to services or will have to travel longer to get services.”
Drug and alcohol services will lose 21 percent of their $51 million budget, including deep cuts to residential treatment, outpatient and transitional housing programs. More than 1,000 people would not be eligible for residential treatment and about 500 people would lose access to transitional housing.
“I feel for the board … nobody wants to make these cuts,” said Robert Garner, director of the Santa Clara County Department of Alcohol and Drug Services. “The question isn’t only do you want to dip into reserves, but is throwing people out of treatment worth the consequence?”
