San Benito County passes $230.9 million operating budget

The San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved the fiscal year 2018-19 budget during its regular meeting June 26. The board unanimously voted for the $230,954,622 budget that included an increase of $492,708 in obligated funds.

Previous fiscal year (FY) budgets total $227,549,131 for FY 2017-18, $190,734,722 for FY 2016-17, $158,279,243 for FY 2015-16, and $168,688,111 for FY 2014-15.

The budget hearing began Jan. 25, as County Administrative Officer Ray Espinosa explained that every year working on the budget has been difficult, and the most recent one was no exception.

“We really haven’t had a large amount of revenue coming in,” Espinosa said. “We have some increased housing and assessed values are higher, so there is some increased revenues. However, costs to operate, pensions and other things have risen. We’ve been diligent in doing what we can to accommodate the needs of department heads, as well as the public.”

Espinosa said the budget addressed new staffing levels at the jail, the Resource Management Agency, Mental Health, and Probation, among others.

During the meeting the day before, Management Analyst Casillas led the supervisors quickly through most of the 72 line items, one at a time. One item that stood out was the county fire contract, with a proposed budget of $2,183,682. Supervisor Mark Medina thanked Supervisor Jerry Muenzer and Board Chair Anthony Botelho for their work on the contract. He said the county needed to talk to the city of Hollister to move the contract forward. Botelho responded that the contract needed to be resolved in the next couple months. Espinosa commented that he had met with Bill Avera, Hollister’s city manager, to discuss the contract and there were concerns about the location of a new fire station. He said because the city was “going dark in July,” Avera would bring the contract to the Hollister City Council in August, and that he would bring it back to the supervisors in September.

“But at this point in time, we still feel the fire station on Fairview Road and Rosa Morada Road will be built?” Medina asked. Espinosa said he and Public Works have continued to move forward with the station.

“I think it’s absolutely critical that we have an in-county fire station that’s outside city limits for protection of the unincorporated areas,” Botelho added.

When the discussion came up about the county counsel’s budget, Medina wanted to know the total cost of litigation that had already been approved. Counsel Barbara Thompson said the county anticipated total expenditures of $620,500. He asked her who the largest amount involved. She said the county estimated a cost of $315,000 for litigation associated with the lawsuit involving the Hollister School District through 2018.

“It’s a shame that between court costs and what, realistically, anybody could receive from the ‘mistake’ it’s like spending a buck to recover ten cents,” Botelho commented. “We’re forced into this situation. We’re not being unreasonable, but it’s something that drives our budget and we have to anticipate we have to react and protect the county. It’s ridiculous.”

Espinosa added that this is the reason the board wants to increase contingency budgets in order to cover unexpected costs, ranging from lawsuits to floods. Piggy-backing off Medina’s comments, Supervisor Muenzer said he could not support the line item until he saw the list of all contracts with outside lawyers and phone calls associated with them. Botelho asked how feasible it would be to get the contracts right away. Espinosa said the information would have to be provided at some future date.

Thompson, though, asked Muenzer if he would be willing to come to her office and pull the invoices himself because they contained attorney-client information that could not be made public. He said he was not willing to do so. Botelho then said he hoped to change the system somehow in order to be better able to project potential litigation costs.

He cited the case between the county and Richard Scagliotti as one in which he personally felt victimized. In it, the county compiled nearly $600,000 in legal fees in defending the former supervisor in a 15-year case filed by an anonymous group Los Valientes. The county then sued Scagliotti to recover those costs and Scagliotti counter-sued the county. The case went to trial in 2017, and a judge ruled neither Scagliotti nor the county were owed money.

“I thought we’d get that money back and we never did,” Botelho said. “I’d like to know more of the options and associated costs. I think [the county counsel’s] office, going forward, should create a different process on how we make our decisions.”

With the exception of the county counsel line item and another concerning County Service Areas (CSA), the rest of the budget drew little discussion. But because of those two line items, it became apparent that there would not be a unanimous vote for the budget as a whole. After a brief recess and backroom discussions to determine how to move forward, it was decided to come back the next day and vote.  

“For a lack of a better description,” Botelho said there were “…discrepancies on the vote.” Espinosa explained there was “…an abundance of caution in regards to the vote in the amount of supervisors we have here today, we want to continue to be heard tomorrow [after the regular meeting].”

By the next day, the supervisors had apparently worked out their differences because they easily passed the entire budget.

See the San Benito County 2018-19 Budget here.