Supervisors avoid job cuts except public information officer

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After weeks of rumors and unauthorized layoff notices spreading throughout county offices, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted against making more than a dozen staffing cuts proposed by county staff. But they made one exception: Rosemerry Dere, the county’s public information officer and the person responsible for communicating government actions to the public and the press.

“Cutting the PIO role doesn’t just silence our collective voice,” Dere said at a public meeting on June 9. “It removes the connective tissue that helps residents understand, trust and support county government.”

Although Supervisors Mindy Sotelo and Angela Curro suggested looking for other funding sources to keep Dere, whose salary is tied to expiring grant funding, the board majority rejected the idea.

The decision to eliminate the PIO position was made during the county’s budget hearings on June 9 and June 17, as supervisors grappled with a particularly challenging budget. San Benito County’s expenses have steadily grown over the past four years while its revenues have not kept pace. The result is a $30 million deficit that officials have spent months trying to eliminate. 

As the budget process unfolded, supervisors and staff flagged inconsistencies in the numbers, and brought in an outside consultant to help make sense of the finances. 

During the June 9 supervisors meeting, consultant Matthew Stark from Baker Tilly outlined some of the inconsistencies in the county’s budget. One of the main problems, he said, was that beginning in 2021, the county started building its budgets around one-time revenues—such as federal and state grants—treating them as ongoing funding sources.

“Early on,” Stark said, “there was a lot of federal aid coming out of the pandemic. These were kind of extraordinary revenues that wouldn’t necessarily have been in your budget, but they do play a big part in contributing to that overall mix of whether you’re going to run a surplus or a deficit at the end of the year.”

That’s precisely what happened with the PIO. Dere’s position was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the $350 billion in emergency funds the federal government distributed in 2021 to address the economic impacts of COVID. The county drew from its $12.2 million in ARPA funds to pay Dere’s salary. States and counties around the nation used ARPA and other relief dollars to fund their day-to-day operations, and many are now grappling with budget shortfalls as those temporary funds run out.

Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez said the county needed to confront its reliance on “one-time monies” and make tough decisions about positions funded through temporary grants. He said he couldn’t support “continuing to spend $200,000 for a PIO funded through ARPA. We have to find a better way to get information out.”

Supervisors Kollin Kosmicki and Dom Zanger echoed those concerns. Zanger called having a PIO a “luxury” the county could no longer afford.

Besides cutting Dere’s position, county staff proposed on June 9 cutting 13 other positions that would have saved the county $3.45 million. All of these positions were retained on June 17. But the board gave the green light to cut 34 vacant positions, including 10 at the Sheriff’s Department. 

Staff also proposed defunding several infrastructure projects to close the budget gap by $6.3 million. Among them: repairs to the roofs of the board chambers and the district attorney’s building; construction of bathrooms and showers at the San Benito County Historical Park; and the expansion of the county library.

With those cuts, the proposed general fund budget, which covers the county’s daily expenses and services, now stands at $94 million.

At the June 17 hearing, a board majority consisting of Velazquez, Kosmicki and Zanger supported cutting those projects. But they asked new County Administrative Officer Esperanza Colio Warren to look for a “creative funding solution” to save the library expansion without increasing overall spending.

That issue will be discussed at next week’s board meeting when the supervisors are expected to adopt what they’re calling a “placeholder budget.” The idea is to approve a temporary spending plan through September, as the board and staff work toward bringing general fund spending down to $85 million, more than $20 million less than the first proposed budget.

Supervisors Mindy Sotelo and Angela Curro opposed cutting the PIO position. Sotelo defended Dere’s work and read a letter from Clerk of the Board Vanessa Delgado, who said Dere had increased “public engagement.” Since Dere took over communications, Delgado wrote, board agendas have seen higher readership, and average Zoom attendance for meetings has nearly tripled from 35 people in June 2024 to 97 this year.

“I think we all need to sit here and consider the long-term consequences of eliminating this position,” Sotelo said. “The role directly supports government transparency and civic participation. I hear time and time again from us sitting up here on this dais about misinformation. Who better to make sure that we have facts and information going out to the public? I want the public to have the information. I want them to have the facts. We need somebody to make sure that the public has information.”

Curro suggested exploring how much the PIO would cost. She also noted that her role should be seen not as an individual role, but as one that supports all county departments.

“I’m not saying it won’t be cut,” Curro said. “I’m saying, look at alternate funding sources, since it was a one-time grant funding. Look at the cost plan and how the position has supported departments because that loss of support will impact all departments and it will cause more work on departments already taking cuts.”

But the majority didn’t back Curro’s proposed amendment to consider future funding options. Seeing that the board wasn’t open to even considering the position, Sotelo asked if the decision was personal.

“Honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me,” she said. “I don’t understand why we’re so against looking at alternatives. I mean, we’re not even willing to explore it. It’s just a hard no. And so, the only thing that makes sense to me is that this is personal.”

Kosmicki, Velazquez and Zanger reiterated that the decision was about the funding source, not Dere, and declined to revisit the discussion.

The placeholder budget will be reviewed and discussed at the June 23 board meeting and is expected to be approved the following day.

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