AnonymousSource: Santa Barbara County
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will hold budget workshops on April 11, 12, and 14, beginning at 9 a.m. each day in the County Administration Building, Fourth Floor Hearing Room, 105 East Anapamu Street. The public is encouraged to follow the proceedings via the County’s website, YouTube and on cable TV channel 20. To watch in Spanish, Cox and Comcast subscribers can enable SAP in their language settings.
Remote testimony and public comment will also be available at the Joseph Centeno Betteravia Government Administration Building at 511 East Lakeside Parkway, Santa Maria and virtually via Zoom by following the instructions here Attending the Meeting by Zoom Webinar.
County budget workshops are held approximately one month before the release of the recommended budget and two months before budget hearings. This provides the Board of Supervisors an opportunity to review and discuss departments’ preliminary budgets and special issues, receive public input on these items, and provide the County Executive Officer direction on policy issues or specific items for consideration prior to completion of the Recommended FY 2022-23 Budget to be released in May.
“Budget workshops are an opportunity to collaboratively craft a plan to create and sustain services critical to those we serve and also reimagine the possibilities of the future. I am very proud of the Board of Supervisor’s history of strong fiscal management which has provided the County with the ability to continue critical services and also advance priorities to meet the emerging needs of our communities and forge a stable and hopeful future,” commented Joan Hartmann, Santa Barbara County Board Chair.
The public is encouraged to attend the workshops and provide input on ideas being developed by staff to fund vital services. Final budget decisions will be made on June 14 and 15, 2022 when the Board of Supervisors holds budget adoption hearings. A schedule for the budget workshops can be found here: FY 2022-23 Budget Workshop Schedule.
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2022-23 preliminary budget and April workshop presentations strive to:
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Reset how the County works by optimizing new technologies and hybrid teams, learning new skills to increase our capacity and efficiency, and anchoring in Renew values and behaviors to guide our path forward in a post pandemic reality.
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Reimagine a more inclusive and equitable future that safeguards the health, safety and prosperity for everyone, while combatting climate change impacts and improving disaster resilience.
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Reconnect with our residents, community members, clients and customers, in both traditional and new ways necessitated by the pandemic; and maintain partnerships, collaborations and connections formed or strengthened in the last two years.
“Last year at this time, we focused on recovery and resiliency as pandemic restrictions abated, more vaccinations became available and significant stimulus helped restore the economy. Today, we are building upon the lessons learned over the last two years by leveraging technology, striving for greater inclusion, and reconnecting with our communities to provide effective service that meets their needs. Like others, we are challenged by economic inflation, recruiting and retention of critical staff, deferred maintenance and legislative mandates, but we see a financially stable and reimagined future ahead,” explains Mona Miyasato, Santa Barbara County Executive Officer.
The County’s preliminary operating budget is estimated at $1.4 billion for FY 2022-23 and marks a fourth year in a row that service level reductions have not been required. This was made possible by the Board’s leadership in prioritizing key projects, careful planning and managing resources in the face of rising operational costs and less cannabis tax revenue than anticipated.
The preliminary budget is balanced through careful consideration of Board policies and commitments, service level impacts and long-term sustainability. A few highlights in the preliminary budget include the following:
- Homelessness: Over $30.6 million is planned next year and combined with $22.3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds approved to date, this equates to $52.9 million toward facilities, outreach, support, rental assistance and encampment strategies. This is the largest amount ever allocated by the County to combat homelessness.
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Climate Change Adaptation: Planned for next year are more energy efficiency upgrades in public facilities and electric vehicles in the County fleet, increasing participation in the Home Energy Savings energy efficiency retrofit program and Energy Assurance and Auditing Services, which provides technical assistance to critical facilities to improve energy resiliency, and continuing participating in Central Coast Community Energy, which increased customers’ use of renewable energy and puts the County on the path to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030.
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Infrastructure: Next year, $27 million is planned for maintaining county buildings, roads and parks, the most since the County set a funding policy in 2014. Of this amount, almost $16 million is for road maintenance projects. In addition, other improvements are planned for the Santa Maria Health Care Center, Cachuma Lake Park, Arroyo Burro Beach, Lookout Park, and Goleta Beach. In addition, expected next year is the construction of the Modoc Multiuse Path extension, and various bridge improvements and replacements. Federal funding was also awarded recently for seismic and accessibility upgrades for the Veteran’s Memorial Building in Santa Barbara and the Lompoc Healthcare Center.
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Equity and Inclusion: A commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion continues next year with proposed spending for improved outreach, language access, and coordination of services to hard-to-reach, underserved, and non-English speaking communities through American Rescue Plan Act and local funding. The preliminary budget also includes continuation of an equity set-aside fund to address emerging needs.
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Other Board Priorities: Three Co-Response teams, which pair mental health professionals with Sheriff deputies, will continue to be funded even when grant funding expires over the next two years. In addition, the Behavioral Wellness department is proposing to add three positions to provide greater outreach and mental health services to clients in the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program (AOT) related to Laura’s Law.
These priorities and investments are included and highlighted as they speak directly to the County’s ongoing efforts to achieve the Countywide vision and address the goals and objectives of the Renew ’22 organizational transformation initiative and the budget development policies adopted by the Board of Supervisors.
To review the budget workshops documents, go to: Budget Workshop Material 2022-23 (countyofsb.org) To review the three-day workshop schedule go to: Budget Workshop Schedule. For information about Santa Barbara County government, go to www.CountyofSB.org.
In competent hands $53 million should be more than enough to establish (sober) bunk houses to provide accommodation for anyone living on the streets or in the bushes. That we could comply with the ACLU demands and provide options: new bunk house, addiction treatment center, mental health facility, jail or leave town – but continuing to camp in the bushes high as a kite, littering our creeks with trash and feces isn’t an option.
Voice Of Reason, Agreed. We don’t need to spend more money incentivizing more vagrants to come here. We need our LEO out on the streets, databasing them and enforcing a cleaner city for the residents. I’m tired (as I’m sure many others are) of screaming, flailing and spitting bums on the sidewalks and benches which are meant for tax payers and tourists. We don’t need to combat the homeless problem, we need the city to actively combat the problems caused by the homeless and not make Santa Barbara a go-to destination for these people. Yes, I sympathize but I have no tolerance for being bothered for money at restaurants, people crossing the streets slow as a tortoise with carts (that are stolen) full of litter and trash and seeing news about assaults and robberies. It’s very simple. They stay off the streets or they don’t live in SB. Any LEO driving past a cart thief should stop, take possession of the cart and perform searches for goods reported stolen. Bike thefts are up, someone was attacked with a machete the other day, and it’s generally a trashy look for our town. I actually don’t know why people are voting for or paying these people for if not to clean up our streets and maintain Santa Barbara as a desirable place to live and tourist destination.
I’m frankly done helping the homeless. I used to buy food and blankets or even give money to some, who were often Vietnam veterans or the mentally/physically disabled. The new generation of homeless are drugged out and mean, mostly here for the sunshine, handouts and booze. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves. Subsidized housing should ONLY be for the low-income families working extremely hard and giving it to out-of-town homeless is extremely insulting to them and unfair.
Agree, well said.