During Tuesday’s meeting, I found myself on my own on 4 key decisions impacting the County’s finances and the Board’s ability to give itself raises. Here’s a rundown of these 4-1 votes:
Warning – this is a long post, but I’d invite you to go through it anyway because these decisions reveal very important beliefs about how we should lead the County.
Board Doesn’t Support My Proposal to Prevent Board from Giving Ourselves Raises: In spring 2024, before I was on the Board, the Supervisors gave themselves a 59% raise, increasing their salaries from ~$53,000 to ~$85,000 and linking annual increases to increases received by one of the County’s employee unions. I opposed this decision, arguing that the Board should not be able to give themselves a raise and that it is a conflict of interest to tie supervisor salary increases to employee increases the supervisors determine.
To prevent this from happening again and to begin to restore public trust in the County, I proposed we put a charter amendment on the upcoming June ballot that would prohibit Supervisors from changing our salaries and institute a 1% annual increase.
Why a 1% increase? If there is no increase, the voters may never approve a salary increase and in 20-30 years, the salaries may be so low compared to Shasta County’s median income that only independently wealthy individuals could run for office.
But I wanted it to be a very small increase such that the supervisors would not – averaged out over a period of several years – ever receive a higher raise than County employees. For context, one of the County’s largest employee unions has received annual increases of 2-3% on average over the last several years – in addition to the 5% step increase (i.e., tenure-based pay increases) 60% of County employees receive on an annual basis.
I also did not want to tie supervisor pay increases to state-paid judges, who have received an average of a 2.9% increase over the last 9 years. That is too high.
In short, I didn’t want us to have to ask County employees to accept a smaller increase than we would receive.
No other supervisors supported my proposal, arguing really only that they worried passing this authority to you, the voters, could result in supervisor pay being too low to attract good candidates. I find this argument ironic, given that all 5 of us decided to run when the pay was 60% of what it currently is.
Plus, look at elected supervisors and candidates over the last 5 years and you’ll find a large variation in age, employment status, and wealth. Plus, you all already have the authority to put an amendment on the ballot to restrict the Board’s ability to give itself raises (more on this later).
I decided to donate a portion of my salary back to the County as a result of a challenge from one supervisor to return the pay increases if I truly felt they were obtained inappropriately. After a few minutes of reflection, I decided I would donate the difference between my salary and the Shasta County median income (which I believe is around $72,000, but I’ll confirm) back to the County’s jail infrastructure fund.
The key principle behind my proposal is that you should choose how much we get paid, not us. A public commenter during the meeting and others on social media over the last few months have suggested that supervisors get paid the County median income. Without a vote by the people (something I want), I relied in the moment on this bit of input I received from you – something that also seemed reasonable to me.
Here’s my challenge to my fellow supervisors: Any supervisor who agrees we shouldn’t give ourselves raises should donate a portion of their salary back to the County.
Here’s my challenge to you: If you agree supervisors shouldn’t give themselves a raise, you can get my proposal or your own version of it on the ballot without Board support. Yes, it will take work. You’ll need to collect signatures. I can help.
Board, Not Me, Decides to Spend $1.1M Set Aside for the New Jail on a Garage for Emergency Vehicles: I am very focused on helping the Sheriff bring to life a new Corrections and Rehabilitation Campus on the 90 acres in South Redding. When we were told about a month ago that the Sheriff wanted to build a garage-like structure in order to house emergency vehicles at the new Emergency Operations Center and that it would likely require using funds set aside for the jail, I voted not to put the project out to bid. I was overruled then.
By Tuesday, the bids had come back and the project would require $1.1M from the jail fund. I said I would support this as long as the Board directed staff to pull $100,000-$200,000 per year from the Sheriff’s budget to repay this amount to the jail fund. The Sheriff would save $100,000 per year because he would no longer have to lease the space where the vehicles are currently, so these funds could be used to pay back the money taken from the jail fund.
I was glad to hear that, but I wanted the Sheriff to pay back the funds in 5 years, not 11 because I believe we’ll need to begin using the funds in 3-5 years – and I wanted the Board to give official action to the County Administrative Office to make this transfer occur during upcoming budget years so that it is not left to the memories and whims of future boards and sheriffs.
But 4 supervisors decided to draw down money set aside for the jail without any conditions.
This is a perfect case of good being the enemy of great. The garage at the Emergency Operations Center makes sense and will save the County money over the long term – but funding it undermines our ability to do something transformative – bring online a new corrections and rehabilitation campus.
Board, Not Me, Decides to Give Nearly $900,000 in Opioid Settlement Funds to Shasta College: Shasta College requested this money to bring more formerly incarcerated individuals into its STEP-UP program, which helps them get an education, and to offer stipends for students in their alcohol and drug counseling program.
I think both of these programs are very important – though I would have liked to hear more concrete data on the outcomes of these programs, particularly the STEP-UP program.
But I was not convinced that the $564,683 to support internships in the alcohol and drug studies program would make a significant difference. The program is currently attracting a large number of students who are having success in the program so far.
Again, good is the enemy of great.
I believe we need to save the Opioid Settlement Funds to pay for the future costs of running an expanded Alternative Custody Program and Male Community Reentry Program at the new Corrections and Rehabilitation Campus.
Board, Not Me, Allows Negative Balance Social Services Fund to Go Until June 30th Without Check-In or Additional Requirements: The Social Services Fund – which covers the administration of public benefits like MediCal, CalFresh, and CalWorks, as well as child welfare – has been in trouble since April when HHSA asked for a $10.5M loan from the General Fund to temporarily cover expenses while waiting on reimbursement. They committed to repay the loan by June 30 of this year.
At the time, I said this is not just a cash flow problem. We are losing money, which is why we don’t have enough money in the fund to cover our expenses while awaiting reimbursement. I asked for 5-year projections to understand how we expected this to play out.
In June 2025, HHSA asked the Board to extend the loan to October 31, which we did. I asked for our average revenue and expenses per month over the last 12 months to understand how we were losing money and how much.
In September 2025, HHSA shared that we were losing, on average, $1M per month. I asked them to return before the loan deadline in October with a plan for closing this gap.
In October 2025, HHSA presented a plan that would help close the gap and asked that we extend the loan to December 31.
On Tuesday, HHSA presented a budget amendment cutting their expenses by $6.5M, a good start toward closing what they project to be a $9.2M loss this fiscal year, especially when combined with the additional $1.2M of funds contributed to Social Services from Public Health.
HHSA also shared projections that showed the Social Services Fund going $47M into the hole over the next 5 years as a result of current shortfalls and upcoming HR1 (Big Beautiful Bill) impacts. If this happens, it would drain Social Services, drain the Mental Health Fund, drain the Public Health fund, and ultimately begin to draw down on our General Fund.
To say that the outlook is dire is not remotely adequate.
I proposed that we approve the extension with 3 conditions:
- Change the loan deadline to March 31 from June 30
- Direct staff to pursue the development of AI solutions to reduce costs
- Direct HHSA leadership to return before March 31 with plans to close the gap by another $1.5M
My fellow supervisors didn’t support this, arguing that I was attempting to micro-manage HHSA and that they were doing well without additional guidance from the Board.
While I applaud the efforts of HHSA leadership to bring this to the Board before it got very bad and to identify solutions as directed by the Board, much of the positive steps we have taken have been the result of my direction – with full Board support – 5 year projections, budget cuts, clarity around monthly losses.
I don’t say that to seek credit. I say it to make the point that the reason we’re in a better place now than we could have been is largely because of specific, clear Board direction to HHSA leadership – which is the Board’s responsibility as the key stewards of the finances of the County.
And let’s also be clear that Social Services Fund projections of -$47M in 5 years should trigger every alarm bell. This could sink the County. We must take urgent and drastic action to change this trajectory with heightened levels of accountability and transparency.
I’m going to ask to meet monthly with the County CEO and HHSA leadership to get regular updates and discuss ongoing efforts. I will share back updates with the public.
We also received a key update on our strategic planning process and the survey results from nearly 2,000 of you. I’ll share these results and my reactions another time.