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For the second straight year, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors will rely on an interim budget to start the upcoming 2026-27 fiscal year and postpone hearings and adoption of a final budget until the fall.
According to a schedule considered by the supervisors as part of a proposed interim budget presentation from County Executive Officer Esperanza Colio Warren, the board is set to continue considering the interim budget for the upcoming fiscal year on June 24, and possibly June 26, before adoption by the June 30 deadline.
The board would conduct budget hearings in September in preparation for adoption of a final 2026-27 budget by the state deadline of Oct. 2, after the first quarter of the fiscal year.
The interim budget, according to Colio Warren, currently includes a $78.5 million general fund with about $71.4 million in revenue and about $5.65 million in fund balance or carryover funding from the current fiscal year, leaving a gap of about $1.6 million that would need to be addressed.
On June 16, the supervisors reviewed a proposed interim budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 and gave direction by a 4-0 vote (Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez was absent) to look at several related items. Those include potential departmental belt-tightening and potential additional funding from cannabis tax receipts, possibly bolstered by tax rate changes as a result of Measure D, which won more than two-thirds support from unincorporated county voters in the June 2 election, and state mandated programs costing the county money.
Another issue the board requested to be considered, which could actually cost the county more money, is potential expense of a sheriff’s deputy incentive program proposed by Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki following the reassignment of a deputy dedicated to San Juan Bautista, located in Kosmicki’s district, and another critical San Benito County Civil Grand Jury report on chronic Sheriff’s Department understaffing.
Kosmicki’s proposal calls for increasing recruitment and retention through a series of incentives, including a $25,000 hiring bonus for new patrol and field personnel, one-time retention bonuses for existing patrol and field personnel equal to 10% of base salary, and allowing new Sheriff’s Department hires from other California jurisdictions to transfer their years of service to the county so they can get longevity compensation benefits.
The proposal came after the Deputy Sheriff’s Association publicly criticized the Sheriff’s Department’s move to suspend dedicated patrol coverage for San Juan Bautista in response to the “ongoing staffing crisis” facing the department. The association noted the increasing difficulty of recruiting and retaining “quality” law enforcement officers in the county, and pointed out the loss of six sworn deputies to other agencies since December 2025.
In response, Sheriff Eric Taylor noted that his department’s contract with San Juan Bautista guarantees a minimum level of dedicated patrol coverage and he remains committed to that requirement. Taylor said the only real change was the reassignment of a deputy in San Juan to countywide coverage.
He also acknowledged that his department’s staffing levels are “critically low” as a result of recruitment and retention challenges, and that the supervisors had been supportive of the department while facing “limited” funding streams, noting that “difficult decisions lie ahead.”
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