OROVILLE — To introduce budget hearings during Tuesday’s Butte County Board of Supervisors meeting, Chief Administrative Officer Andy Pickett described the county’s adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with ongoing work in previous disasters.
Pickett said how the county proceeds is no longer about short term survival, as it was one year ago, but instead, a long-term strategy to adapt to that new reality.
“As we look around, things are starting to feel a little bit more recognizable,” Pickett said. “I don’t say normal, and I hesitate to say we’re going back to normal, because I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. I think we’ve seen too much, I think we’ve done things differently and we have different expectations as a society.”
After presentation from county administration, comments from two department heads and discussion among the board and staff, the board voted to approve the recommended 2021-22 fiscal year budget totaling $749.3 million as adjusted for spending authority until the budget is formally adopted. As part of the budget hearings, the board also took action on the following items, all of which passed unanimously:
- Provided direction that if the general fund balance available exceeds $18.9 million the additional amount will be used to increase general fund appropriation for contingencies. If the general fund balance available is less than $18.9 million, any shortfall will be addressed by reducing general fund appropriation for contingencies and any shortfall greater than the general fund appropriation for contingencies amount will be addressed by reducing the general fund reserve.
- Accepted the community corrections partnership budget of $9,331,887, incorporated into the recommended budget.
- Held a public hearing to consider a 10 percent transfer of Public Health 1991 Realignment Revenues to the Social Services Find, which is estimated to be $885,154.
The overall budget is an 11.8% from the prior fiscal year and includes a $225.4 general fund budget, with an estimated $18.9 million available in the general fund and $16 million in the general reserve, according to Deputy Administrative Officer Meegan Jessee.
The budget also has a net increase of 4.5 positions.
“There’s a lot of work that’s ahead of us,” Pickett said, “and this budget puts us in a position to be successful, to emerge from the disasters and the pandemic to a brighter future.”
Also included in the presentation was a breakdown of the county’s revenue sources, totaling $139.4 million. By the far the biggest revenue source comes from property tax ($72.8 million). Others included were Proposition 172 sales tax for public safety ($21.5 million), disaster reimbursement ($8.5 million) and local sales tax ($6.4 million). Revenues also factored in $12 million from the $204.4 million PG&E Settlement Fund that the board has already committed to various projects and initiatives.
Supervisor Debra Lucero inquired about the American Rescue Plan Act funds the county was allocated totaling $42.5 million, half of which the county has already received. Jessee said those funds are not included in the budget, and staff will continue having discussions with the board on the use of those funds following their introductory conversation on the topic during the June 9 meeting.
“We won’t put them in the budget until you approve what it is you want to do with those dollars,” Jessee told the board.
Departments respond
Following the presentation, which also included details on each department’s individual budget, Butte County Assessor Diane Brown appeared before the board and listed a number of concerns regarding wages among her staff.
Brown said entry-level clerks make “less than the starting wages at McDonalds,” and appraisal staff — a job that requires a four-year degree — make slightly more than $20 per hour.
The total budget for the department is $4.3 million and has 39 positions. In the past instances when employees have been given raises, Brown said it has been up to department heads to figure out how to fit it into the budget, which often means cutting employees. Dropping below the current number does not appear to be a viable solution, she said.
“We cannot operate with very much fewer than 39 employees,” Brown said. “We’ve gone just about as efficient as we can get, and any cuts is going to have to hurt services. There’s no other way to do it. With all the disasters we’ve had to deal with, we just cannot get it done.
“It’s just not sustainable. We’ve got to start investing in our work force.”
District Attorney Mike Ramsey also spoke to the board about the impacts the past year has had on the District Attorney’s Office, which has 93 total positions and an annual budget of $14.78 million for the upcoming fiscal year.
Ramsey said the pandemic has exacerbated “increasingly complex criminal justice procedures in that system” with a significant court backup that includes more than 650 pending jury trials, 18 of which are homicide trials.
“How we’re going to get those out is going to be a real tap dance … particularly when the emergency orders go away,” Ramsey said.
“I would expect when the pandemic emergency rules go down, we are going to be in a real rush, and that’s not only us, the courts, but it’s also, I’d like to speak for the public defenders. Public defenders have been going through this process with us to try and keep the system going, so that we can have public safety by removing some of the folks that impact that public safety.”
And, like the county Assessor’s Office as well as other county departments, the DA’s office has struggled with a lack of recruitment and retention of employees by not being able to keep salaries competitive. Ramsey gave an example of a deputy district attorney hired in Butte County making $65,000 annually, which he said is “fairly low” for a prosecutor in the state. Ramsey cited another first-year prosecutor working in the county for 10 months who then received an offer in Contra Costa County for the same position with a salary of $104,000.
“That’s what we’re competing with, folks,” Ramsey said. “And trying to retain folks with that is extraordinarily difficult.”
Later, prior to the board voting on each of the items, Board Chair Bill Connelly responded to the comments from departments.
“I’ll say this for the board, I’ve been up here for a while … there is just a complete balancing act here,” Connelly said. “We appreciate our employees and we want to pay them more, but we really don’t have new income coming in this county. We haven’t landed a big dot com business or anything that creates a lot of taxable resource for us. It’s tough.
“We’re all very, very serious about struggling with these budgets and committed to cure some of the things that you brought up today — to the best of our ability.”