The San Luis Obispo County budget is now finalized.
The Board of Supervisors closed the book this week on the long-winded process of closing a nearly $40 million budget deficit. Last year's deficit was $22.5 million. The county predicted that if the gap wasn't addressed this year, it could have skyrocketed to $67 million by 2029.
“We really needed to do some things that change the landscape," District 3 Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said during Tuesday's meeting to approve the final budget.
From the start of budget hearings earlier this month to this past Tuesday, some adjustments to the original proposal affect land protection, health and human services, community services, fiscal and administrative, and financing. The county’s Health Agency Director, Nick Drews, saw big changes to public health and behavioral health, which, according to the proposed budget, totals over $10.5 million in general funding.
“So there was kind of a dialing down of certain services, but there were also some services where we felt that there was a good connection to the community where we would be able to partner with an external organization," Drews said.
On the bright side, one-year transitional funding was added to the budget in the form of $1.5 million that would be awarded to partner organizations in the community to support their critical services for vulnerable populations. Additionally, there was an added $2.5 million in one-time support for homeless services.
“The idea would be to identify partnering organizations that would be able to take some of these funds and make use of them in a positive way and even fill perhaps some of the areas in which we lost," Drews explained of the one-time funding.
Originally, the budget proposal called for the elimination of 168 county positions, many of which were already vacant, but in the finalized budget, there are now only 154.75 positions being eliminated.
“We did a lot of work to get to this point," District 4 Supervisor Jimmy Paulding said at the meeting. "We did appreciate the work of the administrative office, our department heads, our community partners, our staff in working with us to close the budget gap.”
The new fiscal year begins July 1, with the final legal budget adoption taking place in September.
