County Supervisors Approve $6.5 Billion Budget For 2020-21 Fiscal Year

Speaker 1: 00:00 As a result of the pandemic and its fallout on the local economy, the San Diego County board of supervisors, Tuesday approved the county's largest budget ever. The more than six and a half billion dollar budget increases the county's health and human services, resources provides extra funds for rental assistance and actually dips into the counties closely guarded reserve funds, a move that County officials say will have to be addressed before the next emergency. Joining me is San Diego union Tribune, reporter Charles Clark, who covers County, government, and Charles, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Now, the County board of supervisors has been very reluctant to dip into reserves as it's a fact that they've been criticized for before. Was there much debate about using some of that money to aid the multiple crises the County is facing now Speaker 2: 00:52 There wasn't there wasn't, it was kind of varying degrees, right? I think there was a consensus among the board that they knew they had to tap into the reserves to a certain degree. And they've already been doing that. Um, you know, as we've been dealing with the pandemic for several months here now, where they got into it a bit more here was with some of the fine line items and amendments that some of the newer supervisors in particular were proposing, um, you know, certain things like translation services or, you know, getting a new traffic light and things like that. There was more debate about using reserves to address those things, um, than say, you know, providing rental housing assistance, which actually was surprisingly, uh, the consensus among the board. And may not, I would point out just going back that as much flack as the board has gotten over the years for the reserves and rightfully so in many cases, I think Diane, Jacob and Greg Cox both earlier this year, you know, and in the early days of the pandemic, they made it very clear that, look, this is what you kept reserves for. Speaker 2: 01:55 And this is the exact same exact thing they need to be used to aid weapon. Speaker 1: 01:59 Ultimately the budget was approved unanimously by the County board of supervisors. So how big an increase is this budget over last year? Speaker 2: 02:08 So it, it came out to Reno, roughly 4.8% increase, which is pretty significant. It's also the largest budget the San Diego County has ever had, which, you know, I think is understandable in that obviously dealing with the pandemic at the same time, there certainly a bit of irony to it, right. That it's happening when revenues have taken a serious dip, but yeah, $6.55 billion is a certainly a pretty good jump. I mean, that's more than $250 million over the current fiscal year. Speaker 1: 02:42 Whereas most of that increase going, Speaker 2: 02:44 You know, most of that money is going to health and human services, roughly $2.5 billion. Um, and within that you have, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to address COVID relief. I mean, a hundred million dollars just for the counties, T3, you know, uh, test trace and treat program. Uh, you had, you know, I think 24 million additional dollars going to rental assistance, uh, as well as $15 million for, you know, new tech to help with tele-health. Uh, and a few other things related to COVID Speaker 1: 03:16 Speaking about rental assistance is the County especially concerned about what some see as the coming eviction crisis, Speaker 2: 03:24 The sense that I kind of got, especially listening to board members, you know, yesterday evening, uh, in particular Greg Cox, I think put it pretty well when he was introducing one of the amendments was that it seems like, you know, they recognize that for, you know, not the big landlords, but smaller landlords. It is tough, right. To not receive rent from people for several months now. Like even for them, even though I think we perceive them as a bit, you know, better off than their tenants, certainly, um, it can be a challenge and he noted, you know, that's part of the reason they have a million dollars in there to try and aid with, you know, tenant and landlord relations. Also, as far as the rental assistance, right. Is paid. It sounds like the process is that it's paid directly to the landlord. So there's no in between. Speaker 2: 04:13 Um, but it certainly seems like that's something they're going to be keeping an eye on. And, you know, I do think that, you know, Helen Robbins Meyer our County chief administrative officer, um, I certainly got the sense that she was pretty mindful of it. I think that's part of the reason that, you know, introducing the budget, she really emphasized to board members that they need to be mindful that there's going to be more crises here that they're going to have to deal with. And there's a lot of things that can put the County in even more financially, a perilous position Speaker 1: 04:43 Right now, of course, you know, there have been calls to defund or do divert some resources from police and Sheriff's departments to be used instead for social services. Did that find any traction with San Diego boards of supervisors Speaker 2: 04:59 To be Frank my assessment? And now I think, you know, I think that was certainly what we heard a lot of people calling for. Um, and I do think you had certain board members who I remember, I actually interviewed shortly after the killing of George Floyd. They spoke frankly about that. Um, they'd phrase it a different way, right. About increased investment in social services, but it seemed like the taking funds away from the Sheriff's department in particular, which has a billion dollar budget, despite the fact that, you know, crime has been at historic lows for a pretty decent stretch here, um, that didn't seem like something many of them were comfortable with. And I think, you know, with the current iteration of the board, at least it would have been really hard to find, I think, uh, you know, a majority to get behind that. Um, I do think though, it'll be interesting to see, you know, next year as we get definitely two new members and potentially three new members, if that's something that's going to be revisited, especially as we continue to see, you know, increased, I think anxiety across the country and in the County, uh, regarding law enforcement's practices and accountability. Speaker 2: 06:11 Right. Especially, yeah. You know, I think we've all been watching what happened in Wisconsin Speaker 1: 06:17 That was San Diego union Tribune reporter Charles Clark.