County Budget Bottom Line: Big Changes Ahead

Message from Helen Robbins-Meyer, Chief Administrative Officer:

A budget may be a bunch of numbers, but they all add up to some very real-world impacts. The proposed budget we released last week is the most transformative of my career here. We’re all going to play an integral role as the County undergoes substantial policy changes moving forward.

We’re increasing our budget from last fiscal year’s by more than 7%, putting us over $7 billion in spending. We are adding more than 600 positions to our workforce.

The expansion is a big push forward in the emphasis we’ve put in recent years on helping our most vulnerable residents and driving us toward more equitable outcomes throughout our region. I want to share a few highlights.

We’re putting more than $800 million to Behavioral Health Services, which covers mental health and substance use. After the Sheriff, that is our biggest County department. New funds will help lower staff-to-client ratios. We’ll add 23 nurses to support the Psychiatric Hospital. Overall, we are reshaping those services to get the right care to the right people at the right time.

We’ll expand medical care and mental health services in our jail system, adding 141 staff. We’re putting $75 million toward the next phase of the Youth Transition Campus that will replace juvenile hall and stand as a visible sign of how we’ve reimagined the justice system for youth.

The new Office of Equity and Racial Justice and the Human Relations Commission are working with the community to root out systemic racism and examine County operations for disparities. The budget will support the initiative Uplift Boys and Men of Color.

To address health equity, we’re adding 166 positions to deliver safety net services like CalFresh and Medi-Cal. Extra staff is also going to Adult Protective Services, In-Home Supportive Services and Child Welfare Services.

The budget calls for new ways to make progress in addressing homelessness, including the creation of a Department of Homeless Solutions and Equitable Communities to streamline operations currently spread across County agencies. There will be 19 new positions for Community Care Coordination programs to support high-need people with housing and other help.

We’re planning all this while still in the early stages of emerging from a global pandemic, with much work to do to keep the virus at a manageable level and recover from the economic havoc it wreaked.

And we’re continuing to step up to meet other pressing quality of life needs. We’ll spend over $100 million for environmental protection: reducing greenhouse gases, planting trees, acquiring open space, protecting water quality and agriculture, and diverting waste from landfills. Funding will also expand environmental justice in the County’s General Plan to reduce pollution exposure and promote public facilities in underserved communities. We’re addressing housing affordability, increasing transparency, and funding parks, libraries, a fire station and other community assets.

I’m skimming the top of the top. You can pick up a few more details in this infographic or dive into the deep end with the complete operational plan. You may want to tune in when many County departments make presentations to the Board of Supervisors on May 26 and 27.

This is exciting change. And the Board of Supervisors and our community are empowering us and counting on us to make it happen! We should expect even more changes to this budget before it gets finalized. But if there’s one thing COVID-19 taught me, it’s that we can handle tremendous changes while continuing to serve our residents with excellence. If we can pull that off under those circumstances, we are well prepared to do great things as we get back on our feet and put this pandemic behind us. Onward and upward!