Marin County supervisors gave final approval to a $784 million budget for the next fiscal year amid complaints from county employees who feel they are undervalued and overworked.
“I have petitions for the board from members of MAPE urging you to include in your budget money for additional payments to staff, particularly in the area of retention bonuses,” Rollie Katz, executive director of the Marin Association of Public Employees, told supervisors at Thursday’s session.
“We feel that in light of the significant savings you have in salary savings due to the high rate of vacancies that you do have the money,” Katz said.
The county realized about $10.8 million in savings during the current fiscal year because 13% of its salaried positions remain unfilled.
The budget reflects a spending increase of 9% over the previous fiscal year across all funds and a 6% increase to the general fund. It includes a one-time expenditure of $5 million for employee retention investments and one-time incentives, and $500,000 in new ongoing spending for employee retention initiatives.
The new fiscal year begins July 1.
The vote on the budget came after three days of hearings at which supervisors also heard calls for an increase in wages for in-home health care services workers, more spending on the county’s rapidly growing senior population and increased investment in aging buildings and infrastructure.
“It would be easy to take all of our one-time funds and just be responsive to things we are hearing, but we also have to be proactive about things we may not be hearing about from our community, but that we know need to be done,” Supervisor Eric Lucan said.
On Wednesday, David Speer, the county’s manager of facilities planning and development, told supervisors that “just within the Civic Center alone, the Department of Public Works is estimating there is around $100 million in deferred maintenance.”
“That doesn’t include the rest of the county, where there is estimated to be close to another $100 million,” Speer said.
The county owns 44 major buildings, including the county jail, six fire stations, four libraries and two corporation yards.
Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said he thinks the county should begin planning for a bond measure to raise the money needed to address the county’s infrastructure.
“I don’t think we can catch up fast enough,” Rodoni said. “I don’t think it is too soon to begin planning.”
The county typically allocates about $7 million to $8 million per year for capital spending. The budget approved this week, however, sets aside $30 million to address deferred maintenance and modernization at the Civic Center and the Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium.
That $30 million allocation accounts for the bulk of the $49.8 million in one-time spending contained in the new budget.
Other sizable one-time expenditures in the budget include $2.5 million to address camps of homeless people; $2 million to address additional road work needed because of winter storms; $2 million for a workforce housing reserve; $1.9 million for climate change investments; and $1.2 million for a state budget reserve.
More than $4 million of the money for one-time expenditures came from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act.
The one-time expenditures also include $500,000 to pay for an organizational study of the Marin County District Attorney’s Office. A recent Marin County Civil Grand Jury report blamed the prosecutor’s office for “a substantial backlog of criminal cases in the county.”
But District Attorney Lori Frugoli has said the new budget lacks money she requested to address the case backlog.
The budget assumes there will be moderate economic growth during the fiscal year, including a 6% increase in property tax revenue, which accounts for 43% of the county’s general fund revenue.
In addition to the $50 million in one-time expenditures, the budget also includes $3.2 million in new ongoing spending. That includes $1 million for county facility improvements, $550,000 to raise the county’s living wage to $18 per hour and $460,000 for a new sheriff’s oversight regime that will include an inspector general, additional staff and training of commission members.
The money for the oversight positions was included despite the fact that supervisors have not yet voted on whether to approve the spending.
The budget hearings also included an update from Jamillah Jordan, the county’s equity director, on the spending of $7.7 million that the county has allocated to racial equity projects since fiscal 2020-21. Of that amount, $5 million came from the American Rescue Plan Act and $1.7 million came from money originally proposed for the sheriff’s department budget.
Jordan said $1.7 million is being used to fund a race equity plan that will be focused on the issues of mental health, housing and economic opportunity. Jordan said the details of the plan are still being formulated, but she expects to present spending recommendations to the supervisors this fall.
Jordan said $2.5 million has also been earmarked for a participatory budgeting initiative that will allow anyone who lives, works, owns a business or goes to school in Marin to vote on how to spend the money. Jordan said the county has received more than 100 grant requests but expects to whittle that number down to 15 or 20 for the public to vote on in October or November.
Supervisors also approved the allocation of $950,000 to 52 nonprofit organizations as part of the county’s nonprofit partnership program. Grants ranged from $10,000 to $40,000.
The partnership program replaced the county’s community service contracts program in 2019 after the county received criticism that the contracts program lacked competitive bidding and could result in political patronage.
During the course of the year, the county previously allocated $500,000 to nonprofits as part of its community services program. Some of the same nonprofits that received money through that program were awarded additional grant money this week.
Community Action Marin, which received $17,000 in community service grants, was awarded an additional $30,000. North Marin Community Services, which received $20,000 in community service grants, received a new $20,000 grant. Legal Aid of Marin, which received a $10,000 community service grant, was awarded a $20,000 grant.
Used with permission by the Marin Independent Journal.
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