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On June 30, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved the recommended interim General Fund budget, which includes $77,231.402 in expenses and $71,248,758 in projected revenue, with $3,082,644 in projected unassigned fund balance, Additionally, $2,900,000 is in reserves for expansion of the library.
“The recommended budget is balanced. The total recommended budget, approved by the board on June 30th, is $239,747,773, including general fund and non-general fund department,” County Executive Officer Esperanza Colio Warren said.
After an hours-long meeting that included budget reports from multiple departments, Colio Warren summed up the overall budget.
The hearing also included an extensive report concerning the sheriff’s budget request. presented at the June 24 budget meeting.
Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki made the motion to approve the resolution with several provisions centered mostly on the sheriff’s office medical insurance, pay incentives, and an automatic trigger to hire new personnel to fill empty positions now frozen, should funds materialize. Additionally, Kosmicki added the need to authorize the “continuation of existing capital projects previously appropriated by the board.”
Colio Warren explained that the interim budget will not be adopted until after the “FY 2026-27 closing (of) the books” and the “FY 2026-2027 final budget workshop” in August. Then the “FY 2026-2027 final recommended budget workshop will take place along with the potential adoption in September, and finally, “the last day to adopt the budget.”
As she did during the June 24 budget meeting, Colio Warren told the supervisors the budget was projected to be balanced. She said there would be 18 new positions, including eight full-time positions, seven of which are for the Planning Department and one in Information Technology, costing an estimated $769,080 in the budget.
Colio Warren also told the supervisors a major administrative change was taking place to help the county run more smoothly and save costs. She said the Resource Management Agency (RMA) was being reorganized because it had become too complex. with three different departments—Planning, Public Works, and Finance—under the direction of one person trying to determine competing priorities.
“We’re eliminating the RMA Director, and we now have a Director of the Planning Department, and a Director of Public Works Department,” she said, adding there will be a third person handling finances for the two departments.”
She later told BenitoLink via email, “Several years ago, the Resource Management Agency was created by the previous administration to be managed by a single director.”
She said there was no clear delineation of each department’s duties, and the department had a centralized finance division, which created issues with different funding sources.
“With the separation, each department will have its own finance department,” she continued. “This is an effort to make the departments more efficient and to have a clear understanding of each department’s responsibilities.”
During the meeting, she explained how Sheriff Eric Taylor’s recommendations, which he made public on June 24, would work.
“We ran the numbers over the weekend,” she said. “If the Sheriff’s Department’s proposals are approved today, he will be able to save $1.5 million.”
She explained the differentiation in the Sheriff’s overall proposed budget between longevity bonuses -–as requested by Kosmicki—for current employees at an estimated $93,690.80, and future employees at $42,441,37.
She also explained two options for medical benefits. The first option includes dental and vision coverage for $654,548.88. The second does not include dental and vision, and would be $606,694,56, saving $50,000. There would also be a 5% night shift differential under the proposal. She asked the supervisors to pick one of the two options before they voted for the entire budget. They chose the first option that included vision and dental.
“We want to make sure that you understand, and this is for everybody in the public, that the intention of this proposal is to address an emergency, a crisis in the Sheriff’s Department,” she cautioned the board. “A crisis must be treated differently because you’re running into the risk of not providing patrolling. And that’s something that we cannot afford as a community.”
She warned again: “This is going to be based on a crisis situation. This is not a negotiation. This is something that we need to do as a community.”
Before approving the overall interim budget, Supervisor Mindy Sotello asked Sheriff Taylor which option he favored.
“Originally, my mindset was option two, but I think, in the grand scheme of things, option one [which includes dental and vision] makes a lot more sense,” he said.
At the time of publication, Colio Warren had not provided the names of the directors of the Public Works and Finance Departments.
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