County officials are proposing to dip into rainy-day funds to pay for millions of dollars in bonuses for county employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In October, the county paid $18.1 million in bonuses to thousands of \u00a0workers following labor deals calling for $1,000 lump-sum payments<\/a> if supervisors changed the county\u2019s reserve policy. Democrats on the Board of Supervisors approved the policy change<\/a> freeing up more reserve funds, but they lacked the four needed votes<\/a>\u202fto actually transfer money from the county\u2019s reserve fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n County officials initially planned to absorb bonuses they had projected would total nearly $25 million. Yet the bonuses came as they also faced new costs<\/a> from the criminal justice reform measure Proposition 36 and upcoming federal cuts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n At Tuesday\u2019s board meeting, county staff will propose using behavioral health funds to retroactively cover most of the bonuses and then replenish behavioral health services with reserve funds. It\u2019s not clear that a required super-majority of the board will sign off.\u00a0<\/p>\n Officials want to redirect $14.2 million in unspent Behavioral Health Services Department funds that they describe as \u201coperational savings\u201d to cover bonuses paid out by about three dozen other county departments. Then they want pull $14.2 million from the reserve account and send it to the behavioral health department.\u00a0<\/p>\n County spokesperson Tammy Glenn said the $14.2 million represents the share of the bonuses that the county couldn\u2019t cover with revenue from programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n She said the county will look at other options that don\u2019t affect behavioral health funding if the board doesn\u2019t approve the proposal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Thus far, Glenn said, the county hasn\u2019t made any cuts to pay the bonuses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n County Chief Administrative Officer Ebony Shelton noted in a letter to supervisors that the proposed moves also wouldn\u2019t result in service cuts and are in keeping with the updated reserve policy<\/a> . She described the proposal to pull from reserves as aiding with \u201ctime-sensitive operational expenditures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Shelton also wrote that the $14.2 million withdrawal would leave another $81.2 million in reserve funds available for the county to potentially tap this year based on the county\u2019s updated policy. Tapping that fund now or later would require four votes, meaning that one of the board\u2019s two Republicans would need to break from their previous position on reserve spending for the staff proposal to pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n Supervisor Jim Desmond has repeatedly spoken out<\/a> against the bonuses. Supervisor Joel Anderson, who supported the labor deals<\/a>, previously told Voice of San Diego<\/a> he wasn\u2019t willing to use reserves to pay for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Glenn declined to speculate on the impact to the county budget if not enough supervisors support the staff proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMany factors impact appropriations and expenditures throughout the year,\u201d Glenn wrote in an email. \u201cThe county will continue to monitor appropriations and make adjustments as needed to maintain the county\u2019s commitment to the community by prioritizing\u202fmandated services and reducing costs\u202fto address additional needs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Labor leaders and county officials including Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe have argued the bonuses made sense as both the county and its workers face funding uncertainties and rising cost of living. Similar payouts were also incorporated into past county labor contracts when there were more Republicans on the county board.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur community expects services to be delivered at the highest possible level,\u201d Montgomery Steppe wrote in a statement ahead of an August board vote on reserve policy changes. \u201cTo meet that expectation, we must also support the employees who provide those services. Our constituents and workforce are not separate groups \u2014 they are part of the same community and deserve our equal commitment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Supervisor Paloma Aguirre, a fellow Democrat who took office in July, did not vote on the county budget incorporating the labor deals.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"County officials are proposing to dip into rainy-day funds to pay for millions of dollars in bonuses for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,84,76,75],"class_list":["post-85167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85167","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=85167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}