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For three fiscal years starting in 2022-23, the city of Hollister paid a total of more than $674,000 in ambulance dispatching fees that were the county’s responsibility.
On May 12, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved a budget amendment to cover those charges, which occur every time someone dials 911 and an ambulance is dispatched.
County Emergency Services Manager Kris Mangano told the board that her department received three invoices from the city of Hollister dated August 2025, covering the fiscal years from 2022 to 2024. She said she wasn’t aware the city was paying the dispatching fees and said her office was “quite surprised” when they arrived.
“There seems to have been an arrangement with the prior administration that, for some reason, the city would be paying them, when it is not their responsibility to pay ambulance dispatching fees,” Mangano said.
County Counsel Gregory Priamos said the new administration has found contracts like these that were never brought to the Board of Supervisors for approval.
County Executive Officer Esperanza Colio Warren took office in June 2025, after the county’s top administrative role was in interim hands for nearly a year.
Her predecessor, Ray Espinosa, held the position for more than a decade before being placed on administrative leave in June 2024, though he remained on the county payroll as a senior executive advisor until last month.
Priamos, a partner at the law firm Prentice Long, replaced David Prentice as county counsel in August 2025.
“We are very critically reviewing every contract,” Priamos said. “We have now stopped the contract splitting, which department heads were using to avoid board approval. I can assure you that the CEO and I are ensuring that all contracts that should be seen by the board will be seen by the board and will be approved by the board.”
The previous county administration has been criticized by supervisors for its budgeting practices which, according to the board, led to a deficit last year and resulted in service reductions and layoffs.
Supervisor Angela Curro said the billing error went “hand in hand” with the prior administration’s failure to appropriately track contracts with outside agencies.
“We need to have a policy in place that any memorandum of understanding, any contract, any agreement with an outside entity needs to not only be, of course, adopted by the board, but needs to be recorded in the recorder’s office and given to the clerk of the board so it can be documented,” Curro said.
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