Board of Supervisors — 2024-06-11

Board of Supervisors and budget hearings for fiscal year 2024-2025. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

There's no report this morning, Chair.

No report to this morning? So just a little housekeeping I want everybody to be aware that we have a time sensitive issue that we have to take care of in closed session at 10 o'clock so we will be Recessing at 10 and unfortunately the closed session is rather long, so we're anticipating that to be about an hour and a half. So we'll be breaking it ten to approximately 1130.

Madam Clerk are there any announcements or changes to our agenda today?

I have a couple quick announcements this morning. As previously noted by our chair, we posted an addendum to today's agenda on Friday, June 7th amending the closed session start time. Please be advised the Board of Supervisors will be recessing at 10 a.m. rather than noon as previously indicated. This addendum has been posted online and made available to the board and the public.

For the Board of Supervisors methods of public participation and to provide public comment on general public comment or an item on the boards agenda, please see page 2 of the agenda. Individuals that would like to provide verbal public comment may do so via Zoom by registering in advance via the link available on page two. I would like to note for those that intend to address the board, there will be an opportunity for public comment at the conclusion of each functional group presentation.

If you are registering to provide verbal public comment through Zoom, please note which functional group you would like to speak on in your online registration. General public comment for items not on today's agenda will be after the administrative agenda and before budget hearings. If you have any questions, please contact the Clerk of the Board's Office at area code 805-568-2240 Again, that number is 805-568-2240.

And that concludes my announcements for today.

All right. Thank you very much.

Chair Lavinino and members of the board, administrative item number one is from the Behavioral Wellness Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding the California Department of Healthcare Services DHCS Third Amendment to the Fiscal Years 2021 through 2024 Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System DMCODS Intergovernmental Agreement Number 2110034803.

Okay.

And Chair Lavinino, members of the board I would just like to note for the record we have no request to speak from the public on this item.

Excellent any questions from Board Members? Okay can I get a motion?

So moved. Second.

All right we're moving staff recommendations A and B all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously Madam Clerk, any requests to speak from the public? That was on that item which you said there was not. Now's the time for members of the public to speak on items that are not on today's agenda. Madam Clerk again any request to speak from the public on general public comment?

Chair Lavanito and members of the board we have three requests to speak on general public comment today and we are going to begin on Zoom with Patty Perez Hogan to be followed by Kathy Rosenthal.

Patty

can you hear me?

Yes we can. Please proceed. Okay, can you go ahead and let the person behind me go in front of me?

Yes, we will take Kathy Rosenthal and then we will go to Patty Perez Hogan. Kathleen?

Yes ma'am, can you hear me? All right. Good morning, Mr Chair and members of the board. My name is Kathy Rosenthal. I am the president of the San Ynez Valley Riders. I submitted for your consideration a letter regarding Live Oak Camp and Live Oak Trail at Kachuma Recreation Area. As you know, the recreation management plan is currently in development and we would like to see a working group come together Discuss this planning for the Live Oak area in the future and have this included as a project for the Recreation Management Plan.

Recently, the California Riding and Hiking Trails Advisory Committee formed a working group to discuss and develop a trail policy for the RMP. And at their July 10th 2023 meeting, the committee approved the policy of The Santa Barbara County Recreation Trail Network is intended to serve trail user groups including pedestrians, equestrians, cyclists and others.

On a case-by-case basis trails and or trail segments will be designated as single dual use or multi-use based on factors listed in the Santa Barbara County Trail Guidelines. This CRATAC recommended policy is to counter the Parks Division standard practice of multi-use Because it recognizes the valid conflicts between users, particularly given new technologies developed for mountain and e-bikes. This policy allows flexibility for some trails to be reserved for more traditional trail users and mitigate conflicts with hikers and horseback riders that may have conflicts with mountain bike and ebike enthusiasts.

We hope you'll consider this policy and direct staff to form a working group The California Valley Riders to plan this area for equestrian use and other uses now and in the future. I will give you an update over the last week, I have been contacted by Jeff Lindgren and apparently we will try to meet on Friday to form this working group but we certainly would appreciate your board support and continuation of support for this project to be included in the recreational master plan. Thank you very much.

We will now return to Patty Perez Hogan to be followed by Arturo Teo here in Santa Barbara. Patty?

Can you let the person behind me go possibly because I'm trying to pull up what I have prepared to speak.

All

righty,

Patty. We can go here in Santa Barbara and then we will go to you as our final speaker. Thank you. We will now go to Arturo Teo here in Santa Barbara.

Good morning. My name is Arturo Tello and I am a landscape painter, and I'm not exactly sure that this is the right time to speak but I just want to speak to you in favor of if you have any money for open space please support Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everyone. Fundraising events, I mean campaigns and we've been able to save 67 or so acres so far.

But there is some important acreage still left over to acquire. We've done many things including Taking donation cans to businesses, to school rooms. As a matter of fact our present president is one of the kids who long ago gave some pennies to the cause of buying the Carpentaria Bluffs. Patrick Crooks is his name. I gave you books. Co-founder of the Oak Group, and I gave you books because there's a little blurb about Ray Strong who is the man who painted that picture that sits behind the dais in Santa Maria when you go there.

Wonderful person. I'm very happy that he was my mentor, my spiritual father. I wanted to I have 58 seconds. I want to read this that I wrote in that book. I see the role of the artist not as a dreamer, but as a defender and a doer. I believe that just as the farmer provides sustenance for the body, the landscape painter gathers food for the soul When I first became a plein air painter 46 years ago, I began a passionate almost mystical love affair with the land. Particularly the Carpinteria Bluffs and the other Santa Barbara coastal open spaces that were being threatened by development. Painting landscapes that might soon disappear added a poignant urgency to the activity.

Now after some of our endangered landscapes have been saved in perpetuity I feel another kind of poignancy when I paint them, an ineffable sense of gratitude for the individuals and organizations and County Board of Supervisors who made possible this legacy of natural beauty for future generations. It's about the most important thing you can leave us with for the future. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I just want to

thank Arturo for also donating the proceeds from his artwork, which he has done, to the cause. So thank you.

Yes, just recently we had an art show where we provided some funds as seed for the next acquisition effort so please help us. Thank you.

We will now go to our final speaker, Patty Perez Hogan on Zoom.

Good morning, Supervisors and staff. Can you hear me OK? Yes, we can please proceed. Thank you. There's a tremendous amount of problems with the Adult Protective Service on the way they conduct their investigations and findings. My family and I have been victims of false reporting in this subject of reports who are flawed and have no evidence of support of any such abuse as a result of Jose Ramirez doing a horrible job in investigation and reporting my father is now in a conservatorship Where his due process rights and civil rights have been violated. During budget hearing, I would ask before passing the budget for the following year for APS Adult Protective Services, I request an independent audit done.

And I'm aware of a lot of reports with problems and flawed with the failure of training and oversight by Santa Barbara County Supervisors in APS and their employees. I would request that the County Supervisors conduct an independent audit and review of the way that Adult Protective Service handles the reports and investigations, and most importantly, the training that the APS investigators and employees receive as well as supervision. I will be sending a follow-up letter to all of the supervisors attached with my investigator Tim Rooney's reports and conclusions upon reviewing the APS report.

Supervisors will take my concerns seriously, and I would hate to see another elder and their family be subjected to Santa Barbara County APS's flawed program. Thank you for your time.

And that concludes general public comment for today.

Okay thank you very much. That brings us to the county budget hearings for fiscal year 2024-2025. I'd like to turn it over now to our county executive officer Mona Miyasato

Thank you Chair LaVanino and Board Members. If we could just put up the first slide, thank you as you know today we are here for the adoption of the recommended budget for the fiscal year 24-25. And before we begin I just want to do a round of thank yous. There hasn't been a lot of drama in this budget. I'm thankful for that but I want to thank all our department directors their teams Primarily their Chief Fiscal and Administrative Officers, many of whom are in the audience today. So thank you very much for your work. Budget seems to be a year-round process so thank you. Thank you to the Auditor's staff, Betsy Shaffer who is sitting in the back with her newly minted Chief Deputy Comptroller Shawna Jorgensen.

You're going to get away from me recognizing you. Thank you. The two of you as well, Ed Price, Assistant Auditor Controller Juan Izquierdo, Vivi Shiloh and Nick Knocker. And you guys could raise your hands so people know who you are. Thank you for all your work as well. Last but not least the County Executive Office team, Nancy Anderson whom you know our other assistant CEOs Tonya Heitman, Wade Horton and Jeff Rapwell and mostly Paul Clemente our Budget Director and his staff.

Wave your hand so the board knows who you are. Our fiscal and policy analysts, Shauna Dawson, Chantelle Ding, Katrina Fernandez, Dana Grossi, Stephen Yee and Reese Allstead. So today we're going to, I'm gonna do a short introduction. Paul is going to go through the recommended budget with a high-level overview. Stephen will go through the functional groups. There'll be time for the board's deliberation and then we'd ask that you take the recommended actions. And this year we thought we'd do something a little bit different as an overview for our budget and so also thank you to Kelsey Gerkens-Boutida our PIO communications manager for making this all seem seamless and if he could play the video?

The County of Santa Barbara's fiscal year 24-25 recommended budget totals $1.59 billion. Crafted with careful planning, this budget reflects prudence and progress. Despite high inflation and economic uncertainty the county's approach ensures the maintenance of core operations while advancing key local programs. Let's dive into some of those key programs making a real impact in our community. 35 million dollars dedicated to reducing homelessness and its impacts, including Hope Village in Santa Maria and La Posada in the Goleta Valley which offer 174 cabin units with wraparound services Allocating $525 million for social safety net programs, mental health services and healthcare for low-income residents. Increased state funding for CalFresh will enhance community access to food aid while anticipated CalWORKs funding will increase cash assistance Additionally, the County's Crisis Stabilization Unit will reopen and add eight crisis intervention beds.

The budget includes $21 million for criminal justice programs with new expenditures for six full-time positions focused on diversion and holistic defense roles. These measures aim to reduce jail usage as support victims in the criminal justice process. The county is investing in electric vehicle infrastructure, upgrades and energy efficient projects. The 2030 Climate Action Plan will be finalized this summer and staff are already implementing measures to increase our renewable energy profile. The county is allocating $129 million for capital projects including the Santa Barbara Courthouse roof replacement and structural improvements at the Santa Barbara Veterans Hall. Economic vitality and recreational opportunities are being enhanced with the Modoc Multimodal Trail, repairs at Goleta Beach Park, improvements at Lake Kachuma, and completion of the Agricultural Enterprise Ordinance providing greater economic opportunities for farms in the county.

The fiscal year 24-25 budget is all about prudence and progress. So the County of Santa Barbara can continue to deliver exceptional services so all can enjoy a safe, healthy and prosperous life.

If you wouldn't mind thanking Kelsey she does such a great job. Go back to the slideshow please. So as you heard and you've heard our theme throughout the last six months or so, Prudence in Progress is our theme. It's a largely status quo budget and this marks the sixth year without service level reductions. And when we say without service level reductions it's not just staff we're talking about, it's about the service that we provide to our public which is of utmost priority to us.

Yet the budget still includes funding for all the things we need to do, all the mandated and essential services to meet our debt service obligations and address critical needs. And as you see, we are able to continue to fully fund our strategic reserve which is 8% of the general fund operating revenue at $45.6 million this next year. And so you've heard about the challenges and emerging issues. And primarily, you see in our county and other places there's been a slowdown in revenues and a rising cost of services. For us 80% of our discretionary general fund revenue is property taxes. And so the mortgage rate industry, the mortgage rates still being high has led to fewer property transfers and therefore slowing of property tax growth. Sales in hotel and cannabis tax revenues are also minimally growing or declining, and obviously they're just the rising cost of doing business.

We see it in salaries and benefits insurance costs litigation etc., and It's to remind all of us that disasters occur in Santa Barbara County And we are still paying for those of the 23 As you can see, 2023 and 2024 storms which caused over $100 million in damage. We're pursuing FEMA and Cal OES fundings but as you know that sometimes takes seven to eight years to recoup that funding.

The state is not out of the woods yet. The shortfall now has been reduced to 27.6 billion. The state just got some good news that their personal income tax revenue's doing better but there still is a significant budget deficit for the state Potentially impact our public health, behavioral wellness and social services departments. Again the legislature is still negotiating with the governor so we do not know yet what those impacts will be.

And we continually face new legislative proposals and regulations which reduce our flexibility and obviously put on greater requirements for all of our departments in our operations. But I also wanna show you what's happening with other places around the county. As I said, revenues are slowing for everyone in our county and some of our cities but also you see in other counties from which we often compare ourselves.

And so this is just a reminder that we see there are deficits elsewhere in the state and so everyone is facing the same kind of pressures as we are But I wanna thank your board because we are, again our theme is prudence and progress. And Mr. Clemente's been talking about it and he'll talk about it again that we've been able to set aside ongoing revenue when the property tax revenues were high in our county so that we could address future deficits which we're doing this year.

And this is just to remind everyone that our discretionary revenue is limited. And that's why we are seeking, and the board has directed us to seek a TOT increase in November. And this just kind of as a very quick overview of all the things that we do. And yet we are limited in all the discretionary actions the board can take. But again, our theme is not just prudence but progress.

And you'll see in the video that we just showed and our slides of things that the departments talked about, we've made progress on many fronts. Things that have been in the works for many, many years. But I want to highlight things that are actually transformational. What does transformational mean? It's a word that we use a lot, but it means we are actually changing the way we provide service or the type of service we're providing. The Dignity Moves Projects, it's a whole new way of looking at transitional housing for our homeless population.

Fire Regional Dispatch will be opening this fall. We have many jail diversion programs, the EV infrastructure, the Workday Enterprise Resource Planning System and also the Rec Master Plan and Climate Action Plan so these are, we are transforming how Santa Barbara County is approaching its future How we're providing services in the future. And we continue to look at, we continue to focus on continuous improvement with the Renew initiative and again it's reminding ourselves and our public that we continue to look for efficiencies and cost savings in ways to raise revenue by redesigning our services continuing to respond to the public and retaining our employees Again, our theme Prudence and Progress will continue on not just for today but through the next fiscal year even though we are challenged with different financial conditions that we've talked about.

Some are known some are unknown but we believe that the board's careful planning and policies will get us through. And with that I'm going to hand it over to Paul Clementi.

Thank you Mona. Good morning Chair Lavinino, members of the board. Over the following slides I'll be discussing the framework under which we developed the 24-25 recommended budget then move on to an overview of what's in the budget. I'll reiterate direction received during workshops go over some final budget adjustments included in your adoption packet and then turn it over to Senior Analyst Stephen Yee to provide brief functional group overviews and updates before we move on to the final board deliberations So just a reminder of where we've been this year with the five-year forecast developed over the fall and brought to your board in December, along with the budget development policies.

We then worked with departments over the ensuing months to develop the preliminary budget presented at the April workshops, with each department walking through their own preliminary budget. Post-workshops, the governor released his May revise on May 10th which I'll be talking about more in a few slides and then we released our final recommended budget on May 30th which brings us to our adoption hearings today.

This budget funds mandated and essential services, debt service obligations, maintenance and infrastructure needs, and board priorities. However revenue growth in the coming year has flattened compared to prior years while expenditures continue to grow. And while service level reductions have been avoided for a sixth year it was necessary to include a planned release of $6.6 million from the ongoing set-asides to keep the county stable and balanced.

While developing this budget, we also needed to remain aware of challenges facing the county now and in the future including rising costs in areas such as labor, capital projects, contracts such as jail medical services and deferred maintenance. Potential litigation costs, new state mandates and budgetary issues I'll cover on the next slides, as well as continued costs of disaster recovery.

We've developed numerous set-asides with one time reserves to prepare for some of these issues, but one time reserves are stopgap measures and our most recent fiscal outlook shows that additional ongoing revenue will be needed to cover anticipated ongoing costs and avoid reductions starting in fiscal year 26-27 with deficits of 2.7, 7.7 and 1 million in the last three years of the forecast. Our five year forecast will be updated again this fall with new revenue and expenditure projections.

More specifically on the state budget, the governor's May revise proposed numerous funding reductions to cover the projected $27.6 billion shortfall. Many of these were in the health and human services area. This includes eliminating a two million dollar future of public health grant which funds public health workforce development and supports 16 regular contracted and extra help positions in the department.

Elimination of $1.7 million of CalWORKs mental health and substance abuse funding in behavioral wellness, which funds five-and-a-half positions as well as contracted service provider costs. And elimination of six million dollars in social services across a variety of their assistance and protective services programs including CalWORKS administrative allocations and employment programs as well as programs in child and adult protective services.

Some weeks after the May revise, the state legislature released their own budget plan which largely rejected the cuts I just mentioned but also included some reductions of their own. This includes a statewide reduction in local child support agency funding that could impact our Child Support Services Department by over half a million dollars. Departments have been working to keep up with the shifting state budget landscape and the initial analysis we're hearing from them is that if the Governor's cuts or for child support, if the legislature's cuts are enacted, unfunding of positions and reduction to service contracts would be necessary.

Layoffs in the departments would be likely avoided due to vacant funded positions and other programs, but those details would be unknown until a state budget is adopted. In some cases departments might be able to use fund balance to bridge funding gaps while they ramp down a program. Negotiations between the governor and the legislature are continuing, and we won't know the true impacts until an agreement is reached and the budget is adopted. There are often trailer bills that also drag this process out beyond budget adoption to state.

Departments are watching closely and will assess and report impacts once things finalize. And finally, unrelated specifically to the state's current budget situation, the DA's office was notified in May that federal funds that are passed through the state to counties for victim assistance programs will be reduced by almost 45%. This would have a $350,000 impact on the DA's 24-25 budget which would grow to $700,000 in 25-26.

The state legislature's budget plan seeks to backfill this loss of federal funds to counties with $100 million, and is part of the ongoing negotiations with the governor's office. So it remains to be seen where this lands. If the cuts are not backfilled by the state, the DA's office will attempt to mitigate the 24-25 impacts with salary savings and seeking other grant funding.

But even if they can absorb that one time hit in the current budget The ongoing impact of almost $700,000 in 25-26 would require program cuts or a new funding source. We will have more specifics on all of these issues and work with departments to determine impacts and plans of action once the state budget is adopted. Moving on to the recommended budget overview, the total operating budget for the County of Santa Barbara for fiscal year 2024-25 is $1.59 billion and supports a workforce of 4,763 FTE.

This is an increase of $100 million and 119 FTE from last fiscal year with a majority of those positions coming from added FTE in social services made midway through the current year. There have been no substantive changes to these numbers from the preliminary budget presented at workshops This chart shows total operating revenues by category. Nearly 40% of revenues over $600 million are from federal and state sources, with a majority 363 million going to our Health and Human Services departments.

The next largest category is taxes at 28%, just close to $450 million which includes property taxes, sales tax, transient occupancy tax, and cannabis tax revenues. The third largest source is charges for services at 25%. This chart shows the same operating revenues, but categorized by the funds that receive them. The County General Fund receives about $569 million or 35% of the total revenues.

Of that 569 million, about 381 million less than 25% of the total pie here is discretionary general revenue that the board has more discretion on uses than many of the other sources. Large special revenue funds include social services at about 220 million dollars, 13% of the county's entire operating revenues and behavioral wellness at close to 200 million.

Discretionary revenue of 381 million is an increase of only 2.5 percent from last fiscal year which we've discussed previously as due to slowing growth in property taxes sales tax and TOT over the prior year adopted budget Here's a further breakdown of the sources of discretionary general revenues, and we don't see a lot of significant change over the five-year period in the mix of revenue sources. We see in fiscal year 2425, the vast majority, 79%, is from property taxes.

You see sales and TOT taxes hovering between 4% and 5% of the total, and cannabis dropping slightly from 2% to 1.6%. Other discretionary revenue makes up the remaining 10% and includes franchise fees, interest income, federal payments in lieu of taxes and the county cost allocation plan revenue received from special revenue funds. This is a different visualization of the same breakdown, showing on the left side the different sources that make up the full $381 million in discretionary general revenue where we can see property taxes making up that 79%. And then the different functional groups on the right side that receive the revenue as ongoing general fund contribution with public safety at the highest, 170 million.

This chart shows the $1.6 billion operating expenditures by category. Salary and benefits continue to be the largest operating expense for the county at 825 million, or 51.7% of the operating budget. This is an increase of 41 1⁄2 million dollars, or just over 5% from the prior year. On the right side we see operating expenditures broken down by functional group with health and human services followed by public safety as the two largest budgets.

Diving a little deeper into salary and benefit trends, we see total salary and benefits have increased 25% or $163 million since the fiscal year 2021 budget. With most of that growth driven by salaries going up $100 million in that same time frame. The overall salary and benefit growth we see next year as I mentioned on the prior slide is just over 5%. And not that different from the annual growth we see in the prior years.

These 2425 numbers include an assumed 3% growth to salaries for those bargaining groups currently in successor MOU negotiations. And these groups represent the majority of the funded positions in the county. This chart shows the staffing levels over five years by functional area. As I mentioned on a previous slide, the majority of the increases in the current year are in social services under the Health and Human Services group.

Public safety saw increases in public defender NDA funded by outside grants and community part corrections partnership revenue while general government and support services increased mostly due to the addition of workday support organization and other support positions added in the IT department The next three slides are reminders of discussions and direction that we received at workshops related to the use of one-time funds.

This is a table we talked through at budget workshops with recommended uses of $33.9 million in one-time general fund balances, including $9.6 million towards COP funded projects which lowered the ongoing cost of the annual debt service, 6.4 million for Disability Rights California and jail medical set aside, which combined with existing set asides provides $10 million to address needs related to settlement implementation including increased jail medical services in upcoming years.

$5.25 million towards operating costs in future years at Hope Village and La Posada if other funding cannot be secured, and a note on this one that this is a slight decrease from the 5.5 million discussed at workshops as we were able to identify 250,000 in an existing ARPA bucket to put towards these costs. The CEO recommends the freed up 250,000 be set aside as 50,000 in each board district for use on projects of community benefit which we see on the bottom row of this table.

This also includes $5.2 million towards CIP projects approved at the workshops, and I'll show on the next slide, $4 million in a set-aside to help mitigate future year deficits in the forecast or other priorities that materialize. And finally, $3 million to public works transportation for additional recovery work related to the 2024 storms. These are the capital projects funded after workshops with the $5.2 million general fund balance I mentioned on the prior slide, as well as $2.5 million from courthouse and criminal justice facilities fund balance for the next phase of the courthouse roof replacement project and $2 million in Prop 172 funds for the Northern Branch Jail additional pod design work.

Some of the general funded projects include Goleta Beach parking lot repaving, Kyrielle Water Loop Phase 2 and continued work on the admin building basement HVAC system among others. Finally we talked about some prior year set-asides at workshops including those for parks trails and open space in North and South County $500,000 for sustainability initiatives and one and a half million to work with the City of Santa Maria on new recreational opportunities We received direction at workshops to earmark $800,000 from the North County Parks, Trails and Open Space set-aside for a potential active transportation project in the San Ynez Valley.

And $800,000 from the South County set-aside for preservation efforts at the Carpentria Bluffs both of which you see added to the table here. This leaves 975,000 of the North County and 295,000 of the South County set-asides unspoken for. Also part of your adoption materials today is Attachment A-1, the list of what we call Final Budget Adjustments or FBAs. These are adjustments that departments bring to us after we have finalized the recommended budget and so are shown in separate attachment that we ask your board to adopt along with the recommended budget.

Many adjustments are carry-forward activities from the current fiscal year, such as a capital project or planned purchase that was anticipated in the current year but for any number of reasons got delayed and the funding now just needs to be shifted into next year's budget. Or new grants or other funding was awarded late in the year and the department wants to get that into the adopted budget now rather than coming back in the new year with budget revisions.

As well as other minor corrections or changes to the recommended budget. We've highlighted three of note on this slide, simply because the dollar figures involved are in the case of the public health adjustment because it involves adding FTE. The community services adjustment is budgeting the revenue and expenditures for the California Encampment Resolution funds that your board heard from CSD just last week when accepting the grant.

The Debt Service FBA is establishing the transfers necessary from the General Fund and Fire District Fund to pay the annual debt service on the COPs that the Board approved for issuance in March, and which were sold at the end of April. Finally, the Public Health Adjustment appropriates $900,000 of funding from CINCAL Health to add four FTE and provide more coordinated care to eligible Medi-Cal recipients.

That concludes my overview of the fiscal year 2024-25 recommended budget. Mr. Yee is prepared to briefly walk through the general fund contribution, operating expenditures and FTE positions in each functional group as well as relevant updates in the functional groups since workshop presentations and departments are all here as well to answer any questions from the board.

Good morning Chair Labanino and members of the Board. As Paul mentioned, I'll be walking your board through a brief overview on each of the functional groups. We'll begin today with the Public Safety Functional Group which is comprised of Court Special Services, District Attorney, Fire, Probation, Public Defender and Sheriff. This functional group makes up almost a third of overall county operating expenditures at $480 million and receives 45% of the county's GFC at $170 million, while making up 35% of the county's overall FTE at just shy of $1700.

Here we see just one notable update from the District Attorney's Office which Mr. Clemente addressed earlier in his presentation. In this slide and the subsequent slide, we detail budget expansion requests submitted by the district attorney and sheriff offices. As a reminder, your board heard these same requests at budget workshops which were deferred to hearings.

The district attorney's office request totals $920,002 FTE while the sheriff's request totals just shy of 4.2 million and 17.2 FTE. And that concludes the overview for the Public Safety Functional Group.

I have a question. I would just like to see if we could get the DA or somebody from the department to just address the state budget and what if that's going to have a day-to-day impact, I know it's working on trying to be resolved but what is that going to do to victim witness?

The urine members of the board.

They don't know that. That was an inside joke.

Ultimately, it would have an impact on day-to-day operations. In working with my staff and the budget director we have determined that we will be able to continue operations at the current level throughout the upcoming fiscal year. The issue will then be in the 25-26 year, so through a combination of salary savings searching other grants we will make it and we are committed to having no service level reductions in victim witness services this fiscal year.

Perfect okay I know that's one of the shining Stars in our county. I want to make sure that we're fully funded at the level that we are currently so

or that will make

it work.

They are the why we do what we do at our office and I'm committed to the really state and nation leading expertise of our Victim Witness Program, and the wonderful things they do on a daily basis is really a central component of the District Attorney's Office.

Thank you. Well thank you for that commitment. We appreciate it. Anybody else for any other public safety groups? All right. Yes, Ms. Alexander?

Chair Lavinino and members of the board I did just want to note for the record we had no request to speak from the public on this functional group.

Okay so each okay got it Mr. Yee that takes us to the community resource and public facilities is that correct

yes chair that's correct So next we have the Community Resources and Public Facilities Functional Group, which consists of the Agricultural Commissioner Weights & Measures Department, Community Services, Planning and Development, and Public Works. Here we see that this functional group makes up about a fifth of overall county operating expenditures at 309 million and receives 7% of the county's GFC at 27 million while comprising 12% of overall FTE with 557.

There's just one significant update for the group coming from the Community Services Department. The department received $7.9 million in state funding to provide homelessness services to unhoused individuals living in their vehicles. This funding source will be incorporated into the department's adopted budget by way of a final budget adjustment, and it should be noted that this functional group did not submit any budget expansion requests And that concludes the Community Resources and Public Facilities Functional Group.

Supervisor Caps?

Yes, I just wanted to ask about Public Works. If I could ask our new Public Works Director Mr. Sneddon to come up and give an update as was featured in the video. I know this board has put a lot of investment and care into the most used bike path in the South Coast which is the Modoc Trail and if Mr. Sneddon could please provide an update on the remaining funds needed

Supervisor Caps, through the Chair thank you. Yes so the Modoc Trail is a regionally significant trail that connects all the cities county and unincorporated areas and as you may recall the board preferred option for that path was to have a portion of the path go on the Coomber Water Company property, which is also a Santa Barbara Land Trust preserve. And we're in the middle of acquiring or trying to acquire that right-of-way.

As a result of that the land trust and La Coomber water company have asked for some significant changes to the project that would add additional cost. And we'll know the total of those costs as we get through the right-of-way stage but as it looks right now there's at least probably an approximately $700,000 gap in existing funding to what is being added to the project.

Thank you. So that's new information since our budget workshop and I would like to respectfully ask our board to help fund, get us to the finish line of this trail with the remaining set aside of the trails budget for South Coast which was as indicated in the slide 295 which would get us most of the way there we think and are hopeful that this can complete this very important project so that's a request I have.

Supervisor Nielsen.

Yes, thank you Chair Lavinino and just as you're looking for support as long as your other South Coast colleagues are on board I'm on board so I understand that's a careful negotiation but it sounds like a great idea to devote those dollars towards that. I apologize for not asking the question during the last functional group is moving a little quick which is great but I wanted If Chair would allow me to go

back

to the public safety functional group. I just wanted to make sure in this budget, you know, this board had previously set aside additional funds for overhire in the Sheriff's Department and I wanted to make sure that those were still there or how does that fit within the budget?

Supervisor Nelson through the Chair, we do have that. There's a $2 million Prop 172 set aside by budget policy that we maintain and we have another $2 million set aside in next fiscal year's budget to be released if needed towards issues such as overhire. And

is that just for Sheriff Deputies or is that with any hard-to-fill position within the Sheriff's Department?

It's sheriff's deputies and custody deputies.

Okay, so if the Sheriff's Department was able to fill their 17 open sheriff deputy positions or their 37 open custody deputy positions and they wanted overhire because they know that they have let's say seven deputy sheriffs that are about medically retire we could go ahead and fund that so they can fill those spots?

As Supervisor through the Chair, we would encourage them to fill those too with the anticipation that yes, overtime retirements and other things would happen. They'd be back to their level and this one-time funding would be able to be released to help bridge any overages beyond their funded positions for whatever pay periods that occurred in.

And arresting that, hiring those positions would help arrest the overtime issues that the Sheriff's Department is facing. My understanding of the last budget update it's over $10 million at this point year-to-date, is that