BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

¶. ♪ Hi. ♪ Hello, everyone. ♪

Good morning everyone. I would like to reconvene our Board of Supervisors meeting, final day of budget deliberations of June 14th Mr. Clerk, if you could do the roll call please?

Mr. Adam? Here. Mr. Lavinino? Here! Ms. Wolfe? Here. Ms. Farrer? Here Mr. Carbajal?

public comment anything not on the agenda?

Chairman Caldwell, members of the board. I believe that all these individuals that I have slips for, I have 11 slips, I believe they all would like to speak regarding budget hearings.

Okay so is there any public comment for any issue not on the agenda today? Mr. Caldwell. Yeah there's

a few of us that do want to speak on general because we're not going I will be speaking later and some will be speaking later as to the board deliberation, but there are a few of us here that want to speak.

Okay if you could identify who those individuals are it would be helpful. But please proceed Mr. Caldwell. Ryan

Sullivan? Okay yeah there's four of us here in Santa Maria.

Could you give us those names real quick if its okay? Oh we have them. Did you get the

slips? Yes

we have the slips. Okay Mr. Caldwell please proceed.

I am Andy Caldwell representing CoLab and Mr. Chair, I want to thank you for adding that other public comment that is incredibly meaningful The one thing I want to focus on that we didn't get a lot of time to address during this week We spoke to it momentarily and fleetingly Is that we understand that the county has made significant cuts. We understand that the employees have made significant sacrifices, we understand that the Board of Supervisors has been under financial duress mostly due to stock market losses and flatline property values which are beyond their control.

We're not an organization that wants to see the county or county services decimated. You know, I've been doing this job for 22 years. I reminded you from time to time that my mom was a county employee that worked in the Veteran Services Office and I was grateful for the retirement she had and the job that she had. We've had pretty much every union in this county on the board of CoLab including SEIU, the Deputy Sheriff's County Firefighters Because we are not anti-county, but what we do want is efficient, effective government services that we can truly afford.

Well the bottom line, the biggest thing missing from your day to day, week to week and year to year operations is where does the revenue come from? And what can we do to enhance those revenue streams? And the one thing, the biggest boom that we have right now going on is in the oil industry. There is literally thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue available to be released and unleashed into our county. We are literally sitting on a gold mine.

And we wish that your Board of Supervisors would take a look at streamlining the regulations affecting oil, because we believe oil by itself could solve almost all of our financial problems. So we would ask for you to take a good long hard look at that and i.e deal with the revenue side not just with the expenses thank you

Thank you, Mr. Caldwell.

Ryan Sullivan and then we have Joe Armendariz and Bruce Corsaw in Santa Maria.

Morning, Chair Carbajal, members of the board. Ryan Sullivan speaking on behalf of the Deputy Sheriff's Association. Just as Andy mentioned we understand the extremely difficult situation the board and all the department executives have been in for several years during these budget proceedings. The cost of business much like the costs of commodities will continue to increase with inflation and other economic conditions.

Facing that reality we encourage the board and the county to promote growth within the county particularly in areas of business and oil The promotion of growth and corresponding increases in revenue will allow the county to adequately fund the services that county citizens deserve. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Mr. Corsaw, and then Joe Armendariz.

Mr Corsaw? Good morning. My name is Bruce Corsaw. I'm with Local 620, chair members of the board. WE2 at Local 620 has considered the factors of revenue. We uniquely have partnered with other groups in our request for you to support more revenue sources building of hotels Oil production, all of these items are something that we desperately need to build our revenue base. And in local 620's view that if we can dedicate some of our administration hours, some of our planning and development hours to generating these revenues it would save this county and give us the ability to become a leader within this state.

We encourage you to take every proposal For potential oil revenue, resort businesses and take serious consideration. Give them preferential treatment to try and build this revenue. Thank you.

Mr. Armendariz? Thank you

Supervisor Carbajal, members of the board. I'm Joe Armendariz representing the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association. I think it's worth noting what is a rather, I think historic and perhaps unprecedented situation this morning as you have leaders from labor business and industry and agriculture coming together in a united front to propose and to encourage your board to Do that which makes the most sense in terms of revenue generation and economic development. You know, Jesse Jackson once said that capitalism without capital is just an ism.

Somebody else said you can't have labor without capital. The point is, in Santa Barbara County just as they have in Texas and North Dakota and Pennsylvania and Montana and Alaska we have a capital resource under the ground that could be taken out and monetized. And the royalties and revenues and profits generated from that And I think this is an effort that could translate into the essential funding for the core services and programs in the county. I appreciated Andy Caldwell's comments because I think what it does defund government. It's never been the objective of the Taxpayers Association or the Technology and Industry Association to unfund government. What we want is fully funded, essential government programs and services. But let me just conclude by making an additional pitch for the notion that you can't have upward economic mobility without good jobs.

John Lennon used to say, give peace a chance. I'm here this morning encouraging you to give prosperity a chance. In Texas where they actually take full advantage of their oil and gas resources, that state has created 1,500 new jobs every business day for the last two and a half years. In Williams County, North Dakota where they're taking advantage of the shale gas revolution their unemployment rate is 0.9%.

In California we still have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and in the northern part of Santa Barbara County some of the highest unemployment rates in the state. These families need jobs, they need prosperity and we believe unequivocally that your law enforcement challenges in many ways are the manifestation of a lack of prosperity. And so we encourage you to keep that in mind as you deliberate this morning. We appreciate the opportunity to participate. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That concludes our public comment period. So now we're going to go to CEO Waller.

Thank you Chair. Just to briefly go over what we intend to share with your board today and what we propose as your budget deliberations, I will start out with Mr. Alvarez our Budget Director giving us an update on information that he has provided to your board this morning then I will give a closing summary of the CEO proposed recommended budget then we'll move into the actual board deliberations And we have for you this morning, much as we did in past years, what we refer to as Attachment E which we will populate based upon individual board requests.

Once that's fully populated, we'll ask your board to deliberate on which of those items that have been proposed by the individual board members there is a general consensus on Once we get through that portion, we'll move to the funding side of the picture and will ask your board for some general guidance on what you would see as possible revenue sources. And at that point, we really won't be looking for a one-for-one unless you have some really specific thoughts. We'll be seeking your general guidance from a policy standpoint on what type of funding sources you would propose.

Then we would ask your board to recess for one hour and allow the CEO, the auditor controller and their staffs to match up so to speak the board consensus request for expansion with the general direction that we will be receiving from you on funding sources. Come back to your board with what we propose as the CEO for the matchup and then seek your boards guidance in Approving the attachment E modifying it after we conclude that will bring forward the board recommendations That will be asking that you consider and adopt a for acceptance of the budget and we'll also be asking you to, as the successor agency for the RDA approve. So that's what we have proposed for you today Mr. Chair.

Thank You Supervisor Lavenino. Thank you Mr. Chair. CEO Waller while you're doing that during the hour can we also on the available fund balance sheet just have this because there might be some changes to some people might Good morning Chair Carbajal, members of the board.

So as we get started today, a couple of housekeeping notes. We had a distribution of materials again since last Wednesday. So Wednesday evening, we distributed electronically more inquiry forms and so forth. Those were distributed in hard copy today as yellow. And then the pink copies that you have are the ones that were completed yesterday. So we have those going out.

As we start this material, I just wanted to mention that assisting me today are Joe Toney is one of our analysts. He will be driving so to speak today. With him is John Giasinga and we also have Richard Morgantini and Yetta Christensen is the budget research staff and so they've been very helpful in assisting with all the materials we're reviewing this week. We'd also like to thank at this point the Auditor-Controller's Office who has helped tremendously with our budget process and we wouldn't be able to get it all done without them.

Mr. Alvarez, before you go I think I speak for my colleagues when I say how impressive it is that all of you auditors, CEO's office, all our staff have just attempted and done a great job of really trying to meet our needs as we request more information. I know it's not perfect. I know sometimes we've seen some things that could be done better, but overall you guys have done a valiant and laudable job of really trying to guide us and get us those board inquiries back as soon as possible. And I know it's been a lot of work so I just want to thank you all and recognize you all for doing a great job.

Thank you. We appreciate that and we also encourage any areas where you see that would be helpful to you please let us know and we're happy to help with that. Okay so as we get started, the first slide these are the recommended actions that we had gone through before. So we're not going to read them. We will be reading them at the end of the process as we go into approve attachment A and attachment E.

The next slide is a reminder to us that we also have to take action as the successor agency to the former County of Santa Barbara Redevelopment Agency and again we'll be reviewing that towards the end of the day. This next slide is the slide that Supervisor Lavinino was just referring to. So this is the one that was reviewed on Monday of our package and one of the things as we got a little feedback from the board, if we go onto the next page What we're trying to do here, based on some input that we received is to try to keep everybody apprised of current events. And then there was also some confusion about the items that were in attachment A that were being recommended by the CEO. So we're just trying to clarify a few points. The table we have up here is the same one that we had before.

What I've done is two things. I've highlighted this column which is our estimation of where we're going to finish the year. That's not anything that would absolutely tie it a fin. And then this column here, we have just...

One second. Is there any way we can get copies of this slide if we don't have

it? That was distributed to you this morning. Okay. Yes it

is. My apologies. Now I just want to make sure that we have it. Oh there it is. Thank you.

I'll let everybody take a minute because again we're trying to assist with clarifying some questions that we got.

All right, please proceed. Or you want to give us? Make

sure everybody's got a copy of it.

Does everybody have it? OK, great. Please proceed Mr. Alvarez.

So one of the questions was the items that are in attachment A that are recommended by the CEO. That's the million 184 here.

It's part of the CEO presentation. One second. Let's just make sure we get it. Can we get another CEO's presentation? Because I don't think Supervisor Wolf has one. I don't see it. If we could get her one in color, that would be great because it's difficult to see the one with all those shaded areas.

Tom, you've got him.

OK.

Once coming we'll proceed for the time being, but one's coming for you Supervisor.

So what we were doing is when this column didn't change at all, we just highlighted the fact that those were estimates and those were not necessarily in FINN, but that's our current estimate. We tried to get that as current as we could when we presented on Monday This column we broke down into two pieces. One, the question came up how much was the CEO recommending within this program restoration line? And that was $1,184,000.

And then the second item was we were suggesting that the money's already set aside in this fund balance to be able to utilize more of the deferred maintenance dollars that we had in that balance and we were proposing that a million come out of there so we just want to identify that that's something that's being proposed but is not acted upon I'll say yet. And so we wanted to just clarify those two points. What we've done down here is we had a number of items that came up through the board inquiry forms and in the process of that, we also got additional information from the clerk recorder assessor's office. They are still working through the weekend and next week on the tax roll, the current estimate that we have May be as much as a 3.5 to 4% increase in the assessed value of the property taxes, we were asked to estimate what that might be and so the auditor controller staff developed what those would come out to.

We responded to that in inquiry form number 19 And it gave some direction of how much a half a percentage change would cause. And at this point after discussion, we are using 2.2% right now. These figures would have us going to 3.2%, so an increase of 1% in the estimation if your board would request us to do that or some other increment. This is the impact of a 1% change. So that would be $1.3 million to the general fund.

$630,000 to the fire department and that's a combination of their base growth plus the tax transfer. Their portion of that additional growth. And then the last item here was another inquiry form that came through on number 45, where we had submitted reserve information to your board. The auditor controller and staff had identified a couple of accounts that were not required to be restricted. So that amount of $465,000 is identified in Board Inquiry Form Number 45. And if it's your board's decision, that could be reallocated to program restoration and then utilized in some fashion.

So we have tried to provide this information to give you the latest information that we have with this option, which is 1%. And again that's in number 19 gives the increment on half percentage points.

Mr. Alvarez if you could go...the deferred maintenance? Yes sir. The CEO is recommending that we use one million of of the proposed increase?

We have $2 million that was unallocated that we had talked about earlier in this week and so that can be used as a plan is developed or the board can say I want to allocate that at this point. It's available for allocation, the CEO was saying that we would intend to spend that next year, a portion perhaps on hiring consultants to assess the parks and uh... general services as we talked about and the balance might be distributed if your board said we want to spend all of the one point nine that could be done if they wanted to spend some portion

thank you mr chair mister alvarez thank you for putting this together uh... it is it is very helpful and i do think it's interesting to see the what's down at the bottom of the recent events in that That information is going to, from the BIFs that we received. That was some of what I used in completing my attachment E. And I think given the comments that we heard earlier from the public and the statements that were made by Mr. Geis Wednesday about the increase in property tax and that we have seen significant activity in the oil industry And under normal circumstances we might be at a 4.2% property tax but that there was, and Mr. Geis you can interrupt me anytime if I'm misstating what you said.

That there will likely be appeals to those property taxes so that we can't count on that. So the numbers that were seen here are realistic numbers and I appreciate that as we move forward. I also, you know as it relates to the oil industry. You know I went to the economic forecast that was put on by UCSB and I don't have the book with me because I didn't think this was going to come up but there was a notation in there about the increase in onshore oil activity in the county of Santa Barbara. So I think the notion that, there is activity that is going on and it's not like the county is putting roadblocks. I think what the county does through our permit processing is making sure that what we do with an industry Is done according to the policies and procedures that we've developed, that the state is asking us to do.

And I think our community is asking us to do. Yes it may be a revenue generator but there's also some inherent risks with the oil industry. So I think what we're doing as a county is taking a prudent approach. Again there is, and I just need to make it clear, there is...I've never heard of one proposal that has come to this board and has been denied. It's gone through the process and the procedures. We have one right now going through the planning And I say to everyone, you know let the process move forward. Let's respect the process and I think in the end we will have a better community. Yes, we will see some increases in revenue but it will be for the good of this community in that we don't take unnecessary risks and frankly There was just an article in the newspaper about the oil spill that happened in Arkansas and the effect that it happened on the homes.

You know, we've had oil spills up in the North County. It hasn't affected residents but it's affected our environment. And you know, we don't...we want to be prudent. So anyway enough said on that topic. Thank you. And thank you again I want to echo Supervisor Carbajal's comments on getting us this information.

Thank you. OK, and then one final point of clarification in response to Supervisor Lavinino's question. So as we go back and get some input from you as we identify funding sources your request would be that I modify this form to add a column for any adjustments to show what they would do to this schedule?

Actually, I guess my request is maybe you can provide it after it doesn't really What I want to see is after we vote on this budget, well actually before I cast a vote on this budget. I just want to know what the strategic reserve fund based on what our deliberations are and where our direction to you is. What are those fund balances going to be so that I know when I say yay or nay that it's 30 million in the strategic reserve? It's such-and-such in this reserve so that our deliberations are reflected on that fund balance.

If I could add to that, if I could extrapolate It's an Excel sheet where as you use any of these funds it reduces those amounts at the end? Yes. So that just shows a current figure of what it will look like? Yes, does that make sense?

Yeah so we'll go ahead and update I think I'm clear now we'll update it for whatever the plan sources are and again when we say you know the numbers For instance, for next year tie and defend and so forth. But there is the green column on the left is estimation, so we won't say that it absolutely will be a number. It's our best estimation at this

point. And as we deliberate and say we're going to take X amount from the reserve, it shows what the reduced amount is.

We can update that after we come back from our break. Yes. Great.

Supervisor Wolf?

I understand that you have this process already lined up but I just want to make a comment. Sure. And that is when we've done this process before, we've had a really clear understanding of the funds that we had available to utilize And it looks like, and that amount was given to us. And then we did add as needed or as we desired some contingency amount. I understand that we want to go through our attachment and give all of our wants but it just seems a little backwards to me.

That what we should be discussing first and foremost is, where are these funds coming from? And that we should at least first agree as a board what funds we're going to use. Because some of us may not want to dip into strategic reserves. Some of us may not want to go into contingencies I think we need to come to an agreement of how much money we're talking about and then from there We move into what are the things that we want to fund?

but so this is this is going to be challenging because it's To me it seems like we're working backwards, but it's going to be an interesting exercise. It will

take longer. Thank you Supervisor Wolf. We did give that serious consideration. We will have an opportunity before obviously we break to also give all those funding sources, but After much consideration, I think this is what I came up with with the CEO. I do appreciate your concern and your input but we kind of wrestled with it and this is what we came up with so.

CEO Waller?

Thank you Chair. Staff if we can pull down the information now. Thank you.

Before you go, CEO Waller, Supervisor Adam had something to say.

Well I'm just wondering procedurally are we going to have public comment before the break? Yes we are. Okay perfect thank you

Over the last several days, your board has received testimony from all county departments describing their current year accomplishments, proposed service level reductions and funding gaps that they anticipate in future years. Additionally you have heard from members of the public requesting funding restoration for programs that they believe to be of importance.

When combined, this information makes clear that although our county is navigating towards a stable future, we still have several very difficult years ahead. Escalating salary, retirement and healthcare costs, northern branch jail operations, deferred maintenance and the uncertainty of the Affordable Healthcare Act make the journey to a balanced budget even more challenging.

The FY 13-14 proposed budget of $844.5 million is, as required by law, balanced with revenues equaling expenditures. Staffing is proposed at 3,891 FTEs which is down 572 FTEs This proposed budget represents thoughtful consideration of impacts, consequences, alternatives and difficult choices made by the departments and county executive office staff while at the same time reflecting the board's stated priorities of maintaining public safety, protecting our children and families and supporting sustainable communities.

However The proposed budget continues to reduce service levels. Maintaining and enhancing service levels in the future will necessitate growth in revenues to balance expected increases in costs. In the months and years ahead, the county should examine how we can help enhance economic development and job growth and increase the economic vitality of our businesses.

Your board's commitment to provide resources to ensure public safety is reflected in the proposed budget. The percentage of public safety expenditures from the General Fund is significantly greater than was spent 10 years ago. With the CEO's recommended operational plan, nearly 60 cents of every general fund dollar will go to the Public Safety Departments including Sheriff, Fire, Probation, District Attorney, Public Defender and Courts.

And if you were to add the Fire District Tax Transfer and the Northern Branch Jail Operations, this would climb to nearly 65 cents of every discretionary revenue dollar. On the downside, this shift of critical funding has resulted in underfunding of community resources, health and public assistance, and all of your internal support services. These reductions result in deterioration of quality of life for our county residents and a significant increase in the risk of financial losses.

As you've heard, the recommendations to close this budget gap are a combination of ongoing program reductions and one-time solutions. As your CEO, I recommend that any additional funding that may become available in the next year be used to reduce one-time fund use and deferred maintenance instead of being used for program restoration or new programs. This will enhance the county's ability to close the estimated gap for 14-15 without further service level impacts.

In summary, the proposed 13-14 operating budget reflects that this organization is poised to successfully move from reacting to an unprecedented budgetary challenge to preparing for upcoming challenges. The proposed budget reflects careful consideration and balancing of cross department service levels and impacts of reductions. The entire breadth of county activities forms an intertwined system of services.

I encourage your board to see into the future and prepare for substantial challenges. It will be necessary for you to make significant policy decisions, and prioritize difficult program choices. It is my hope that you will support the effort and operational knowledge of your department heads and CEO staff in preparing these recommendations by adopting the proposed budget at the end of your deliberations.

In closing, I'd like to acknowledge the leadership your board has provided in the difficult financial and policy decisions you have made over the last year and to thank you for your support. I would also like to thank the department heads and the CEO executive team for their significant input into the proposed budget. Also, all of our county employees whose commitment to providing exceptional public service is the foundation of what enables Santa Barbara County to continue to provide a wide array of services to our residents.

This outstanding team stands ready to support and implement the final budget your board adopts. Over the last two days, I have felt personally moved by the credit and praise the supervisors gave to each of your departments for maintaining your commitment to public service during the ongoing budget challenges. Not once nor twice but multiple times you were recognized. Thank you for all you do.

Chair that concludes my presentation.

Now we're going to start from the 5th district down to the 1st district in terms of providing any expansions. Or takeaways that you'd like to see. And then after we get done going through that exercise, we're gonna circle back and again go over it item by item to see if there's at least three votes for any of those items or not. Or three consensus on funding amounts. As we start that I just want to start with One piece of information, especially for the public that's watching and our wonderful media in the room.

Usually from the dais we try to speak and utilize the best data possible. And I asked for a board inquiry form regarding a comparison of the increase over the past 10 years for public safety versus planning and development In the last 10 years since I have been on this board, for public safety we have allocated a 57% increase. For planning and development 1% in 10 years.

So I just say that because sometimes you hear about, oh and now we're doing a 14% increase. But if you look at the window it really gives you a better picture of what we're talking about. It's easy to throw out statistics but when you throw out the full picture it really gives you what the public really needs to understand what we're doing up here. Supervisor Adam?

Well, you know I think you are as guilty as I am of and not that we either of us are guilty. That's probably a bad word but we're cherry-picking. You know I use the information at hand which happened to be an annual comparison and then you used a different comparison so if we go back 20 or 30 years maybe it would be something different

Thank you, Mr. Adam. So now we will proceed. Supervisor Lavinino will start out with you.

Thank You Mr. Chair. Well I don't know if this is the time to talk about what our priorities are. I guess this is it so first off before we get into what my add-ons are gonna be I want to I really want to applaud our CEO and the executive team for not just what you did this year but for the last couple of years You know navigating us through an economic time when we were basically struggling to keep the lights on and end up where we are right now.

Kudos to you and your team, outstanding job. Mr. Alvarez once again great job I look at your job as like the lion tamer sitting down there and we all want different things and you got the chair in between us. Mike, Alan your team is doing a great job getting us all the information we need and we really appreciate not just what you do this today but all throughout the year.

And to our employees done the best job that you can with the resources that we've provided. You know many of you took these jobs to help people and make a difference. We appreciate all the sacrifices that you've made, the extra hours, we've heard about the extra caseloads Really done an outstanding job, keeping us afloat. And one in particular I want to point out is that I heard during the really Had an impact on me was Chief Probation Officer Bev Taylor, who in her department has a chief innovation officer.

And I think that that's something I'd like to see us bring back as something that I think every department head should have in their department. Somebody that has that job as collateral duty to come up with new ideas in their department on ways that we can save money and increase revenue. Many of you know that I'm conservative, but it was good to hear today Andy Caldwell talk about not being anti-government. I am not anti-government.

I'm fiscally conservative, but I don't think you can be in this job for very long without becoming very socially aware of the services that we provide up here and we are the social safety net You see people that are in jail, that have mental illness that should be in a psychiatric facility that we don't have enough beds for. You see veterans that came here and talked about having to wait for their benefits because the queue was too long, the line was too long.

Foster kids that possibly might fall through the cracks because we have a lack of resources. I know that weighs on other members of this board as it does me as well so What I look at our job is take the limited resources that we have and spend them as wisely as we can. It's been mentioned many times that 60 or 65% of the dollars are going to public safety, and I'm okay with that. People in my district want to live in a safe neighborhood, that's the first thing they talk about. When I'm out there they bring up roads and they bring up social services but having any Pales in comparison to making sure that we've got adequate fire protection, that our Sheriff's Department is fully funded. That when I call 911, I've got somebody that's going to show up at my door and take care of that bad guy that's in the backyard that I don't want to go out and confront so I'm okay with where we are in that department.

Somebody said yesterday that yeah 60% of every dollar goes to public safety what does that mean? That means we need more dollars and that's absolutely true I've been listening to Mr. Armendariz and he's right we have to come up with a new strategy, new strategies where we all kind of open our comfort zone a little bit you know and and I'm gonna lay out a few that that I'm interested in one is and I brought it before and I'll bring it again it's not something that I would probably campaign on a tax increase but I think the TOT increase is something that is not felt by the members of Santa Barbara County as much as it is visitors to our area. I don't think anybody wanting to come to Montecito to stay at one of our plush resorts is worried about what our TOT is and I'd like to see it basically mirror what the surrounding communities are.

I just never see it fair that somebody can come to our district and pay less, we go to San Francisco or LA and we're paying more so I'd like to see...I'm going to be interested in bringing that back. I think we have a huge resource in Kachuma and looking at the numbers of what we make in our other Park areas in our beaches. And I'm not bringing back beach parking fees, don't worry Supervisor Wolfe.

I've learned that lesson. I only get hit once or twice and then I figure it out. But what I am interested in is increasing the revenue and whether we do that we can't do it through beach parking fees but Some of our concessions at some of our beaches are making a half million dollars a year. And I really see Kachuma as a place where we can increase some of our revenue, so I'm going to be interested in talking about that.

I'm still interested in pursuing the Miramar and one of the other areas is, I think is really short-sighted on our part, is our sales team for Santa Barbara County which is our chamber visitors Convention bureaus in our chambers of commerce, we've got listed to cut and defund. And as I get to my list here that's a big priority for me. I don't see any successful business that doesn't have people out championing their cause and so I think our sales team is our chambers of commerce and they need to be fully funded and put in the structural budget.

Talking about oil wasn't really going to get into that too much but I do think we need to respect the process, and I am glad that we are doing some activity right now. But what I think is lacking in the process is certainty. It's very difficult for these companies to invest millions of dollars. And I'm not saying that we have certainty as far as a thumbs up or thumbs down but a certainty of what the timeline is going to be, a certainty on what the regulations are When you start moving the goal posts and moving the goal line, then it becomes very difficult. And it is for us. I'm not talking about doing anything like fracking. I am talking about increasing activity in state designated oil fields.

That's all we're looking for. You know when we look at the unemployment numbers in northern Santa Barbara County they are much more different than what you are enjoying down here. This is the highest paying job sector in my district and I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't advocating for increased activity. Another area that I think we need to look at is a way to increase, what do they say? The easiest dollar to save is the one you don't spend and so I think there's some areas where we could cut back and one of those and I've kind of glossed over it the first two years I was up here because I didn't really want to fight this battle but The Children's Health Care Initiative is, it's a very admirable cause and it's worthy of being funded.

But I don't believe by the taxpayers. You know when you look at President Obama's universal health care plan that's one area where Obamacare doesn't cover its people that are in the country illegally so even the president did not put this into his funding. It's one segment that isn't covered. Even our own state, with a two-thirds controlled Democratic legislature and Governor Jerry Brown in the programs that they have that was healthy families.

That segment of the population is not covered by taxpayer funded health care. And there's a reason for that is because personally I'm questioning whether it's even legal It seems to me to be a gift of public funds in a sense that we are taking taxpayer funded dollars and we are distributing them to people that we know, not questioning. We know are not citizens because If they were a citizen, they would fall under either the Healthy Families Program or they would fall into the federal programs. So it's a small section of the community and like I said, I think it's an admirable and worthy cause but it's something that should be taken up by the private sector.

I know this is Supervisor Carbajal's baby and I know he's well respected in the community, can raise lots of dollars Knows a lot of people on the private foundations, and I think this would be a great area for them to get out and get in front of. And support the community. But one of the reasons why I'm sitting here is because I told people that I would try to make taxpayer funded benefits for legal residents only. And I think this is an area where we write a check for $1 million a year not for healthcare For kids, but for health insurance.

We already provide the healthcare. We have anybody in this country whether you're here legally or illegally can show up at one of our clinics and you will get healthcare. So I'm not cutting healthcare, cutting health insurance. And I know that we've talked before about well if we provide this then there's less visits to emergency rooms. And I've seen the statistics and that's true. And I understand that but that logic to me is flawed because you cannot I don't think you can go down that road. Because the minute you do, then all of a sudden, you know what?

It would also be much better off if they received a college education because then they'll be much better prepared to be in the workforce and then we're paying for college education as well. And like I said, that's a worthy cause should be done in the private sector not done by us here. So those are some of my guidelines You'll see in here that I did not add manager's pay. And I want to talk about that right now, too.

That was the toughest one for me. Haven't received an increase in five years and it's very difficult for me because I know you deserve it. It has no doubt everybody in here deserves a pay increase But I had to go back and look at how did we get in the position that we're in right now. And I don't know if any of the other supervisors had this go through their minds, but sometimes I've looked at what our benefit package is and I'm like wow, how did a Board of Supervisors ever approve? How did we get in this position? But it was when times were good or started to be good, and I know that there's just pent up desire to increase.