During a presentation on the county’s fiscal year-end close, the Board of Supervisors learned that there may be a $2.2 million carry-forward from last year. Treasurer Tax Collector Auditor Controller Chamisse Cubbison qualified the number by saying that up to half of it may already be committed. Supervisor Ted Williams tried to get some specifics.
“What is the exact amount of the carry-forward?” he asked.
“That’s kind of got a big asterisk next to it,” Cubbison told him. “I’m looking at roughly about $2.2 million, but there are encumbrances, which mean there are prior-period obligations, that we are still going to be paying for in this year.” She added that, “I can’t give you any confidence that the Board has not already committed a million of that to something.”
Known funding needs come out to a little over $6.6 million, though $1.6 million of that is questionable. Shortfalls in the cannabis department and the costs of winter storm damage are still unknown. Last year’s health plan deficit stands at $3.6 million, and the growing shortfall for the jail expansion is over $1.4 million.
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is expected to reimburse the county for the $1.6 million it spent on the now-concluded Project RoomKey, a program to provide temporary housing for homeless people who were especially vulnerable to covid. County staff reported that other counties have learned they will not be reimbursed for their Project RoomKey expenses, but so far, Mendocino County has not been told to stop waiting on the FEMA check.
The Board agreed to send letters to higher-level representatives and state organizations about the importance of receiving the money.
Supervisors previewed this year’s budget struggle as they shared strong and sometimes differing opinions on parks, the employee healthcare plan, and the county’s growing share in the construction of the new jail building. Supervisor Dan Gjerde, who announced at last week’s meeting that he will not seek a fourth term, expressed frustration over the county paying more than what he views as its fair share of the health plan. Last year, the county switched over from the self-funded model to an insurance pool, but the deficit from months of not paying into the previous plan, followed by high claims during covid, remains.
“I know we’re not supposed to discuss much about what happens during closed session,” Gjerde began. “However, I think it’s fair to say, there was almost no discussion by the Executive Office staff about the fiscal impacts of twice asking this Board to approve, which we did, at their request, six-month extensions where the employees would not pay 25% of the cost of the healthcare plan. Twice we were asked to do it, twice we approved it, and it had a direct fiscal impact on our budget.”
Employees currently pay 16% of their healthcare costs. Premiums are not due to go up until the next round of negotiations, in June. The current contracts, with a 2% COLA, were finally hammered out at the end of last year.
Supervisor Maureen Mulheren said she had her reasons for declining to insist that employees pay the full 25% of the healthcare premium.
“I am not going to say that the Executive Office did not fully inform us about the costs or about the impacts,’ she declared. “I am a grown person, and understood the way that I was voting, and that I didn’t want to put that additional impact on our employees during an inflation, during a summer where we had gas prices well over five dollars. So I just want to be very clear that I was informed about the costs.”
But Gjerde insisted that this was not the only instance where staff had let the board down. “My other example is the jail project,” he said. “Each time the costs of this project have gone up, the presentation to the Board has always been, here is the new incremental extra cost. It’s just another blank. It’s just another blank. And it’s only been in the last six months, mostly because some of us on the Board have been articulating this, that, wait a second. Take a step back. Look at the big picture here. This is a State program to realign State prisoners into county jails. And I’m glad that we’re finally getting our act together and preparing a timeline and a budget, showing the cost increase and how much of this is attributed to State inaction versus county inaction — it looks like the vast majority of it is on the State side — but I feel like county staff, who are responsible for projects like this, that balloon out of control, need to step it up, and not just throw this onto the Board’s lap and say, just come up with another blank millions of dollars out of the General Fund. We do not have those millions of dollars.”
Mulheren and Gjerde disagreed again, after Gjerde restated his position that the county should figure out how to unburden itself of the expense of maintaining a half-dozen neighborhood parks. Mulheren said the large inland parks are much more than that.
“Mill Creek Park and Low Gap Park and the Russian River access are economic opportunities for inland Mendocino County,” she stated. “You are very fortunate to live on the coast and have beautiful recreational opportunities that our inland folks don’t have.”
But Gjerde insisted that, “We should have leadership in inland Mendocino County stepping up and developing their own Funding stream to develop and cultivate and perhaps expand these inland neighborhood parks. But they should not be looking to the General Fund of the County of Mendocino to maintain parks that it cannot afford to maintain.”
Mulheren reminded the board that she is on a committee that is working out the details of how much the parks actually cost, what their value is, and if the City of Ukiah is willing to take over some of the inland parks. The full board will discuss the committee’s findings next month.
