Yesterday’s meeting was relatively short given the large number of regular agenda items. I’ll only highlight 2 here:

 

Board Gives $250K to Bolster Efforts to End Veteran Suicide & Homelessness: 

Since taking office last year, I’ve been pushing for us to focus strategically on ending veteran homelessness and veteran suicide (which makes up 20% of all Shasta County suicides). Why veterans? Because they deserve it and because it’s a defined population that has a distinct set of benefits and organizations. 

During planning meetings last year, I met Justin Bond, CEO of Our Heroes Dream (OHD) – a veteran-serving organization that operated in the Fresno area before receiving a camp in Oak Run. OHD’s 4-phase program walks veterans and their families through a process of getting their lives back. They have also stepped up to fill critical gaps in our system for addressing veteran homelessness:

• Emergency Response Team that engages homeless veterans within hours or less of receiving their call.
• Suicide On-Call Team that responds to emergency calls and walk veterans back from the edge.
• Gap housing that homeless veterans can stay in after their transitional housing benefits dry up and before they’re able to secure permanent housing.

We gave OHD $250,000 for this work and other services to play a critical role in addressing these challenges alongside other great organizations, including Nation’s Finest, FaithWorks, and the County Veteran Service Office.

I’m excited about OHD’s offering and the broader system we’re assembling. At the same time, we need to be clear about how we define success and we need to start requiring nonprofits receiving County funds to report on those outcomes. This was missing from the contract we signed yesterday – though Justin agreed to share outcomes data during his reports to the Board. I won’t agree to a future one without it. 

 

Mid-Year Budget Amendments Save County $8.4M: 

Every February, County staff bring the Board adjustments to the budget based on the first 6 months of the year. This year, County staff:

• Reduced expenses by $15.0M
• Reduced revenue by $6.7M
• Reduced net County cost by $8.4M
• Reduced General Fund expenditures by $3.9M

Almost all budget units reduced their cost to the County. The largest reductions came from Mental Health and its related budget unit for Alcohol and Drug in the form of $5.5M in reduction in net County cost. County Fire came in next with a $2.1M reduction. 

These are good financial moves for the County – and they look even better when compared with the last 4 years of mid-year adjustments:

This is also our biggest mid-year reduction in General Fund expenditures in 4 years:

And these adjustments are on top of the County cutting its total spending for this budget last July for the first time since 2010.

Why am I excited about this? 

The County faces a number of significant financial threats that will put us in a very dangerous financial position if we don’t act conservatively now. In addition, Shasta County has been limited in its ability to take on big initiatives – like the new Corrections & Rehabilitation Campus – because we haven’t had the money saved up to fund something big like the Campus.

Spending conservatively now is key to financial health and achieving our big strategic goals.

 

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