Yolo County facing layoffs, spending cuts

By Luke Gianni
CNS Staff Writer

Yolo County officials are scrambling to prepare this year’s budget which will include massive spending cuts, layoffs and significant reductions in services.

Officials said falling property taxes and dwindling state funding have left them with no choice but to direct all department heads to separate the indispensible components of their programs from those that the county could survive without – presumably to slash them.

“We’re at the point where we can’t tighten our belts anymore,” county spokeswoman Beth Gabor said. “Now it’s lopping off whole programs to meet out targets. There will also be a discussion about how many employees we are going to lay off.”

The county is facing a $22.5 million cash shortfall, nearly a third of its total budget.

The layoffs and program cuts are but one part of a multi-pronged solution envisioned by county administrators in their endeavor to tame the monumental deficit.

Officials will be meeting with union representatives to renegotiate pay, benefits and retirement contributions of all employees, from which the county hopes to save around $5 million.

Gabor said the county will also spend nearly half of its general fund reserves – $4.2 million – to narrow the gap.

In addition, officials forecast around $2 million in federal stimulus money coming to the county that will also help shore up the budget.

However, even with a new labor agreement, reserve spending and federal help, the county will still be about $11 million in the hole and that, officials said, will have to come out of somewhere.

“I expect we will see [cuts] all over the map,” said Pat Leary, assistant administrator for the county. “There may be some services lopped off all together. It’s obviously going to be an extremely, dramatic change.”

Leary said the details have yet to be hammered out, adding that there are no solid numbers on how many layoffs will be coming.

She said her department will meet again with the Board of Supervisors on April 21, ahead of the normal June budget deadline, to brief them on their progress in cutting the budget.

By that time, the county’s departments will have submitted their essential-vs.-discretionary budget wish lists. The board will then decide, item by item, which programs to keep funding, which to reduce and which to cut out all together.

“We asked for them to identify what their core services were,” Leary said. “It’s drawing a line between that what you need to provide and what would you like to provide.”

Taking a pay cut may be hard to swallow for county staffers, many of who were already on voluntary furloughs to help mend last year’s budget shortfall.

“As generous as our employees have been it has been tough,” Gabor said. “The reduction of their salaries across the board will be a hardship for many. We imagine some of our employees will be eligible for our services when this is all said and done.”

Leary insisted, however, that the county will eventually recover and avoided calling this recession a permanent paradigm shift into limited service. On the contrary, Leary said, the county will be forced to innovate and become more efficient, making it even more productive when the economy eventually turns around.

“Every recession is unique,” Leary said. “They are like children. They all have idiosyncrasies to each one. But part of what a recession does is it makes you look at your service and ask: Is this the best way we can provide these services? That is why these crises can be incubators for innovation. To the extent you can, you innovate and get new ideas and that’s your paradigm shift.”