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After a lengthy series of public hearings and workshops, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors has closed the county’s budget deficit and approved the county’s revised 2025-26 budget in an Oct. 1 meeting, one day before the state’s deadline for doing so.
“The adoption of this budget is not going to solve our problems,” Supervisor Angela Curro said. “It’s just the beginning of trying to get to the bottom of where our problems are. This is going to take quite some time, and it’s not going to be one year, it’s not going to be two years.”
The supervisors approved a $95 million budget in June and has been holding public hearings and workshops since Sept. 22 with the goal of reaching a $72 million budget.
By Sept. 22, they had narrowed the gap to about $5 million by cutting more than $15 million in operations and eliminating seven filled positions and 16 vacant ones.
A proposal from County Administrative Officer Esperanza Colio Warren, which included reducing more operations and cutting five filled positions, four temporary positions and one vacant position, brought the gap to $3.84 million.
To close that, the board approved using reserves and maintaining the current hiring freeze. In total, the county cut 17 vacant, 12 filled and four temporary positions.
“There are comments that there might be a reduction of services to the public if we have to do these things,” Supervisor Dom Zanger said. “Yes, I accept that. I understand that. I think that’s what it has to be at this point. There’s no viable alternative that I see.”
The latest round of cuts include one vacant position from the Probation Department and five filled positions, including one from the District Attorney’s office, two from the Resource Management Agency, one from the auditor’s office, and one from the clerk/recorder/elections office.
Clerk, Recorder, Registrar of Voters Francisco Diaz said he wasn’t expecting to lose the additional position because he had notified the county he planned to use a $55,000 state grant his office had received to fund the position through the end of the fiscal year. He said the funds were received on Sept. 29.
Colio Warren said she was unaware of the grant and that the supervisors could always revisit the budget if departments are able to secure additional funding.
She said the position cuts will provide additional savings to the county in future years.
“In this year’s budget, only $2.4 million dollars are savings, the same positions that you are not filling today are going to have a savings on the following fiscal year of $4 million,” Colio Warren said.
She said that is because when eliminating the positions, the severed employees need to be paid for their benefit accruals such as vacation time.
The supervisors also rejected a proposal to implement furlough days, which would have occurred once a month for eight pay periods for all employees except law enforcement. Instead, the supervisors opted to use additional reserves to cover the expected $584,708 in savings.
Warren said the furloughs would have amounted to a 3% reduction in salary for the employees.
Overall, the supervisors approved using $3 million from two reserve funds. Supervisor Mindy Sotelo said the county has about $19 million in reserves.
Colio Warren said the county could “inject” funding into the reserves if the county receives additional funding.
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