projected $300 million annual hit<\/a> to the county\u2019s budget as a result of federal cuts, Lawson-Remer and Montgomery Steppe have pushed for the creation of two subcommittees to help the county navigate its next steps. The two supervisors will lead both committees.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe first, created in August, focused on digging into the potential impact of social service cuts and exploring what it would take to make the county\u2019s behavioral health department a standalone agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second allows Lawson-Remer and Montgomery Steppe to work with county staff and consultants to hash out ways the county might bring in more revenue. Those planning discussions will happen behind closed doors \u2013 and will be presented to the full board when the two supervisors decide those ideas are ready for prime time. \u00a0<\/p>\n
A tax hike is one of the options they are considering.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a problem and my belief right now \u2013 and I\u2019ve not seen anything to kind of convince me otherwise \u2013 is that we need a revenue measure,\u201d Lawson-Remer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once Lawson-Remer and Montgomery Steppe settle on proposed solutions, they\u2019ll need to present them to the full county board to proceed. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Not everyone agrees with this strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost of everything in San Diego County is already too high. Housing is outrageous. Gas, electricity are expensive. Everything else is costing more,\u201d Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond said at the Sept. 30 board meeting. \u201cWe cannot and should not add to that. To me, this item is the first step toward putting a new tax on the ballot.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
Besides the consideration of a potential revenue measure, Lawson-Remer said that the subcommittee\u2019s work may also include communicating with constituents, meeting with stakeholders, conducting a community survey or hosting focus groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to look at every option and see where it lands,\u201d Lawson-Remer said. \u201cThe question is what makes the most sense on a lot of dimensions \u2014 what\u2019s most efficient at plugging our budget hole.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sustainable fiscal planning subcommittee will focus on a wide array of programs from health insurance and food assistance to child care and fire preparedness. It also encompasses public health, with a concentration on the cross-border Tijuana River sewage crisis in the South Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are under attack from the federal government. They have a laser focus on us,\u201d Lawson-Remer said, referencing upcoming Medicaid and food aid cuts. \u201cThey\u2019re slashing programs that are essential to San Diegans, and it\u2019s ultimately going to have hugely negative effects on everything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Other Subcommittee \u00a0<\/p>\n
The safety net subcommittee has two distinct layers. First, it seeks to find ways to prepare for and adapt to social service cuts affecting programs like Medicaid. Second, it is considering how to structurally reform the county\u2019s Behavioral Health Services department to strengthen operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the board considered creating the subcommittee in August, Montgomery Steppe said that the county needs to urgently rethink how it administers Medicaid, CalFresh food stamps and other public benefit programs in the current federal landscape.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among the proposed goals that Montgomery Steppe and Lawson Remer laid out in a Aug. 26 board letter: evaluate county staff\u2019s capacity to address new administrative requirements tied to Medicaid and food stamp eligibility determinations, explore partnerships with health care providers and community organizations to help residents with new federal processes and engage with state and federal government officials to\u00a0 \u201cshape implementation timelines and advocate for local flexibility.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond federal cuts, Montgomery Steppe and Lawson-Remer also want to turn the county\u2019s behavioral health department into a standalone agency, something other board members also voted to explore last December.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Currently, the department is part of the Health and Human Services Agency, which also includes departments like public health, aging and independence services and children\u2019s services.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cToday BHS accounts for nearly one-third of the entire HHSA budget,\u201d Montgomery Steppe said at the August board meeting. \u201cIt manages highly specialized medical, mental health and substance abuse services, but still remains nested in a much larger agency. Elevating BHS to a stand-alone department will allow the county to track funding, outcomes and accountability more directly.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lawson-Remer said the subcommittee will work closely with a consultant to determine the benefits of creating this structural change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019s convinced a stand-alone behavioral health department would provide more opportunities to unlock funding streams and engage with the state more directly on policy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c(BHS is) not able to have a seat with the big dogs in Sacramento to negotiate and to shape policy at a statewide level in a way that\u2019s helpful for San Diego, because it\u2019s buried underneath HHSA,\u201d Lawson-Remer said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Desmond, who voted last December to explore making the behavioral health department a standalone agency, said in August he continues to support that goal but argued for more public conversations at board meetings versus the two-person subcommittee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is getting supervisors too far into the weeds into the inner workings of the county,\u201d Desmond said. \u201cWe\u2019re policymakers, not the department advisers. We\u2019re not the experts at this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrats on the county Board of Supervisors are considering a push to raise taxes and using county resources…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[13,74,84,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-22803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-politics","9":"tag-san-diego","10":"tag-san-diego-county","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}