El Dorado County recommended budget $87M less that previous year

On Friday May 29, 2019, El Dorado Chief Administrative Officer Don Ashton
released his Fiscal Year 2020-21 Recommended Budget to the Board of Supervisors. The total recommended budget is approximately $647.7 million, which is $87.3 million less than the Fiscal Year 2019-20 budget, a copy of which can be accessed here.

“Due to the timing and circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the unknown impacts on the State budget and revenues, the recommended budget primarily reflects on-going services and service levels, a largely status-quo budget, recognizing that additional work will take place over the summer in order to present a modified budget for final adoption in September,” said Ashton.

Ashton noted that in addition to reductions to locally funded programs due to decreases in local sales tax and transit occupancy tax revenues, absent a bailout from the State General Fund or the Federal Government, the County must prepare for significant revenue reductions in State-funded programs such as prison realignment
programs, social services programs, public health programs, child support services, and the road fund.

“El Dorado County continues to be one of the lowest taxed counties in California per capita and also continues to provide a very high level of service with fewer employees per resident when compared to other jurisdictions,” Ashton noted. “While this demonstrates the outstanding stewardship of the Board of Supervisors as well as the strong commitment from County employees to provide high levels of service with limited resources, it also points to the stark fact that it will be very difficult to adopt a final budget in September without reducing services or impacting investments into our infrastructure, including roads, buildings and information technology.”

In anticipation of the reduced revenues, the following initial steps were taken in order to reduce costs:

- Reduced the Year-End fund balance assumptions due to the COVID-19 revenue impacts.
- Set property tax, sales tax, transient occupancy tax, and interest revenue to equal the FY 2019-20 budget, fully recognizing the potential that these revenues will need to be reduced further.
- Deferred most new requests from departments to a discussion later this summer.
- Reduced most ‘travel and training’ expenses by up to 25% in recognition of COVID-19 travel restrictions.
- Maintained most services and supply budgets at prior-year levels.
- Set approximately $1 million aside to help cover COVID-19 impacts in FY 2020-21.

The Board of Supervisors will be asked to consider, make any adjustments, and approve the recommended budget at their regularly scheduled meeting on June 9, 2020. Additional budget discussions with the Board of Supervisors are anticipated to occur later this month and throughout the summer, with formal budget hearings
taking place in September prior to the adoption of the final budget.

State law requires counties to have a budget in place no later than June 30 of each year.