By Zach Friend, County Supervisor 2nd District
After over a week of hearings the County Board of Supervisors adopted the budget for the coming year. The budget focuses on some key priorities including: increasing reserves, continuing a restoration of services especially in parks and public safety, reducing the structural deficit and expanding economic vitality efforts.
Local Economic Indicators
Overall, local economic indicators are positive — including increases in property, sales and transient occupancy taxes with a corresponding decrease in unemployment — but concerns about a possible statewide slowdown within the next 18-24 months means that budgeting must be done cautiously and the Board used that as a guiding principal during the budget hearings.
The decrease in unemployment is mainly attributed to strong local growth in the leisure and hospitality sector (over 26 percent growth since 2012) and the manufacturing sector (over 21 percent growth since 2012). This has also led to an improvement in per capita income since 2010 from $42,808-$52,280 by the end of 2014 (the most recent numbers available).
Budget Funding
The County’s main funding mechanism (other than state and federal pass through funding) are property taxes followed by sales taxes and then transient occupancy taxes (the taxes charged to visitors to local hotels and vacation rentals). It is projected that the strongest tax growth in the coming year will occur in transient occupancy taxes, especially with new agreements with Airbnb, contributing to an expected 13 percent increase from last year.
Sales tax is expected to grow at a modest 3 percent. This provides a general background of the economic climate, now I’d like to showcase highlights of programs and staffing approved in this year’s budget.
Budget Highlights
Over the last year the County has implemented a number of programs and services that we are looking to expand in the coming year. Technological initiatives, such as the Citizen Connect mobile app, electronic plan submission for building and planning, public safety radio upgrades for rural communications and online document access are all elements anticipated to be improved in the coming year.
Homeless services, including expansion of the HUD-VASH program for ending veteran’s homelessness, the All-In program — which aims to provide permanent supportive housing and wraparound services to local homeless are key continued initiatives in this year’s budget.
Parks
In our district, we are financing parks upgrades at Aldridge Lane Park in Corralitos and Seascape Park in Seascape. In addition, the final elements of the Polo Grounds Bathrooms (expected to open in early July) are included in the budget.
Public Safety
From a public safety perspective, the Sheriff’s Office received approval for body-worn cameras to improve transparency with the community and also additional deputy positions to improve staffing levels. The District Attorney’s Office received approval for bringing the Multi-Disciplinary Interview Center (MDIC) — a holistic center designed specifically for child victims of crimes — to our county.
The Board funded a center director and is working with other cities in our county to fund the complete staffing and physical location. In addition, the Board added positions to the Probation Department to specifically focus on domestic violence and moderate to high-risk caseloads.
In community programs the Board made significant investments toward mental health programs, seniors, youth violence prevention and more.
This is just an overview of the key highlights of the budget — much more was funded.
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As always, I welcome your thoughts and questions. Feel free to call me at 454-2200.