San Jose
– Deep cuts to public and mental health services and up to 480
layoffs for county employees in January 2008 are in store if Santa
Clara County Executive Pete Kutras’ proposed budget, released
Monday morning, is approved.
San Jose – Deep cuts to public and mental health services and up to 480 layoffs for county employees in January 2008 are in store if Santa Clara County Executive Pete Kutras’ proposed budget, released Monday morning, is approved.
Budget hearings begin next week as the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors hopes to adopt a final spending plan by June 30. The county faces an unprecedented $227 million deficit to its $3.8 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Departments are being asked to cut a combined $145 million. One-time funds, including reserves, will help make up the difference. Kutras, speaking at a press conference at the county government building Monday morning, called the reductions “painfully devastating” and said, in some instances, the cuts would mean the elimination of vitally needed community services.
“We have a continual shortfall of revenue in order to carry out our business,” Kutras said. “We’re painfully aware of that. Right now we’re facing deficits for the next three years. This is not over, and that’s what I think is most foreboding.”
In South County, the regional community-based health clinic on Highland Avenue in San Martin, which serves Gilroy and Morgan Hill, is slated to close to help plug the budget gap. Public nurses would still make field visits for tuberculosis and communicable-disease cases, but they would be forced to travel from the East Valley Regional Office on McKee Road in San Jose instead of from San Martin.
The county’s mental health department also would be forced to cut outpatient services for 6,000 adults to make ends meet. While this would not reduce the caseload at the South County Mental Health Clinic on First Street in Gilroy, Community Solutions, one of roughly 100 nonprofit agencies that contract with the county, would be forced to trim its caseload from 248 to 160 adults, according to the county.
Also on the chopping block are public high school health services and birth-control resources available to some students throughout the county – including in Gilroy High School.
Kim Roberts, chief executive officer for the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System, called the cuts drastic. She said for years the county has been “big hearted” in providing public-health services that go above and beyond mandated levels. Now that the resources are dwindling, she lamented, so too are services.
Nancy Peña, director of the county’s mental health department, said many mentally ill patients would be forced onto the streets without services they need.
Kutras’ budget is no surprise to departments that have been warned all year of the looming cuts. Since August 2006, when the county released its initial targeted reductions to departments, Kutras has said repeatedly there simply are not enough revenues to maintain the current level of expenditures or the current level of services offered in the county.
The dire situation is rooted in part by rising costs and revenue sources that are out of the county’s control.
About half of the county’s general fund revenues come from state and federal sources that have flattened out or declined in recent years. The largest local source of county revenues are property taxes, which amount to about 30 percent of general-fund income.
Despite signs of a rebounding Silicon Valley economy – including rising property values and low unemployment – Kutras said counties often slump longer than the private sector.
He also blamed cities with redevelopment agencies – especially San Jose – for diverting property taxes away from county coffers. Currently just 28 cents out of every property-tax dollar goes to the county.
As part of his deficit solution, Kutras is proposing a 911 telephone fee in incorporated parts of the county of $1.60 per month per line, including cell phones, that will generate $500,000 annually.
