San Diego County has released a draft $9.15 billion spending package for the coming fiscal year — but major questions remain on what it could mean for the county’s finances in the long run.
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The record-setting package plugs considerable holes in the county’s budget in part by tapping about $95 million in one-time reserves freed up by a Democrat-led overhaul of the county’s financial policies last year.
Going into drafting the budget, the county faced a $180 million gap between how much money its department and agencies requested and how much it was going to bring in in revenue. To balance the budget, the county relied on one-time funds, cutting 114 vacant jobs, right-sizing contracts and other moves.
In a statement, Chief Administrative Officer Ebony Shelton, the county’s top bureaucrat, acknowledged that revenues are “not keeping pace with overall growth in the cost of doing business.”
“We enter this budget year in a time of uncertainty and transition,” Shelton said. “State and federal actions are creating new pressures on many of the services people rely on. These challenges are real, but the county has prepared for them.”
When they made their budget last year, the county was facing an estimated $139 million budget gap, with forecasts at the time saying it would continue to grow in the years ahead. Officials erased last year’s gap by gutting the county’s capital projects budget and trimming 190 mostly vacant jobs from its workforce, among other cuts.
“This budget is balanced because we made disciplined choices and protected our priorities,” Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe said in a statement. “Families are facing uncertainty, and counties across California are waiting for key federal and state decisions that could dramatically increase costs in future years. Our job is to be honest about that reality and prepare now, not panic later.”
Supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond, the board’s two Republicans, declined to comment on the new budget, saying their offices needed more time to review it. Supervisor Paloma Aguirre did not return a request for comment.
The release of the draft budget comes as county voters appear likely to decide in November on a measure that could have a major impact on the future of the county’s finances.
A coalition of labor unions and nonprofit leaders have turned in signatures to place a countywide half-cent sales tax on the November ballot. Organizers anticipate the measure, which needs a simple majority to pass, would bring in $360 million in its first year.
The coalition first began rallying around a proposed sales tax hike last year, pointing to how federal cuts and new eligibility requirements might impact social services programs like food stamps and Medicaid, which the county administers.
Last summer, officials estimated new annual costs for the county could reach $300 million. But according to the draft budget and other documents, the worst of those fears are not materializing.
Its draft budget calls for hiring 122 new staffers to assist with new biannual eligibility checks for CalFresh. Last year, they feared they’d have to hire more than 400 if monthly checks were required — but the state confirmed that won’t be the case, according to an internal memo sent to supervisors Monday by Elizabeth Hernandez, acting head of the county’s Health and Human Services Agency.
New cost-sharing requirements for CalFresh also aren’t as bad as initially thought. The state is not going to pass on 100% of new administrative cost-sharing rules, Hernandez said; if it had, the county would have to absorb nearly $53 million in new costs per year, instead of the $16 million it’s budgeting for them.
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The draft budget calls for using $23.7 million in county reserves to cover the new CalFresh costs — and another $44.7 million in reserves to cover the costs of other federal changes to social safety-net programs, like eligibility checks and work requirements for Medi-Cal.
In all, the draft budget would raise county spending from $8.64 billion to $9.15 billion — a 6% increase — and add 108 positions to the county’s payroll, bringing the number of county employees to nearly 20,400.
Unlike cities, the county not only acts as the local government of unincorporated areas — where its purview includes local roads, zoning and public safety — but also runs a massive apparatus of jails as well as social services that span behavioral health, homelessness, child protective services and much more.
In the coming year, county social services and behavioral health programs would have a $3.6 billion budget, amounting to more than a third of the county’s budget and up $124 million over last year.
Public safety — another key part of county government that includes jail, fire protection, courts and the probation system — also gets a spending boost in the new budget. Its budget would jump by $97 million, to about $3 billion.
A major share of that new funding stems from Proposition 36, the 2024 state ballot measure that heightened penalties for certain drug and theft crimes and offered expanded treatment options. The measure came with no new funding, leaving local governments to absorb the costs.
With its draft budget, the county plans to spend $24.5 million next year and create 56 new positions across the offices of the sheriff, public defender and probation unit to comply with the new law.
Capital projects — which got shortchanged in last year’s budget — would also be restored closer to levels seen in the past.
Between 2024 and 2025, the county slashed its capital budget from $136 million to only $46 million. In the coming year, the capital budget is proposed to be $120 million. Major projects in it include the Behavioral Health Wellness Campus in San Diego’s Midway District.
In March, the county scored a $99.5 million state grant for that project, which envisions a multi-use complex with a crisis-stabilization unit, a mental health and rehabilitation center, a social rehabilitation facility, an adult residential substance-use disorder treatment facility and an outpatient community health clinic.
The project is estimated to cost $193 million, of which the county plans to contribute about $13 million in its proposed capital budget. The complex is expected to be built by 2031.
The county is also budgeting a modest $3 million to modernize the Vista jail. Sheriff Kelly Martinez has been pushing for a full replacement of the jail, the oldest in the county’s system. The county expects that full project to cost nearly $950 million.
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