The Board of Supervisors is expected Tuesday to formally adopt a $10.36 billion budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, incorporating some new allocations deemed necessary during hearings on the proposed spending blueprint.
“The revisions represent targeted investments in priorities identified by the board,” county CEO Jeff Van Wagenen said in the final appropriations report that will be reviewed by the board Tuesday. “The 2026-27 budget continues to prioritize preservation of core services, avoidance of widespread layoffs, maintenance of prudent reserves and gradual reduction of the structural deficit through active fiscal management.”
Van Wagenen indicated during the June 8-9 budget hearings that layoffs may be unavoidable in some departments. He emphasized the hiring freeze initiated last year will continue, along with targeted spending cuts and controls, to mitigate deficit spending. According to the CEO, “just-in-time” funding will be available to meet specific needs as the board engages in unending “budget management” throughout the coming fiscal year.
At the end of the hearings, the Executive Office returned to the board with $27.4 million in proposed new allocations to at least partially satisfy agencies’ needs.
The augmented outlays include $8.5 million more for the county Sheriff’s Department, $679,000 more for the District Attorney’s Office and $250,000 more for the Department of Animal Services.
The increased allotment to the Sheriff’s Department remains well below what Sheriff Chad Bianco insisted he needed to preclude patrol deputy layoffs.
He told the board that without another $250 million, he’ll end up slashing over 600 deputies from payrolls in the next few years.
“This is a massive number that we cannot recover from,” he said. “The proposed budget for us is absolutely disastrous.”
Bianco said roughly $138 million of the $250 million request that his staff submitted to the Executive Office for consideration, and wasn’t accepted, amounts to “stay flat funding” to keep the agency about where it was in staffing during the current fiscal year.
He asserted there would be major impacts to unincorporated communities as patrols are taken away to ensure the 17 municipalities that contract with the county for law enforcement services continue to receive protection.
“These are tough budget times,” Supervisor Jose Medina told Bianco. “The pain needs to be distributed across the county departments. As important as public safety is, it cannot be helped not to feel some of the pain (of spending caps).”
Supervisor Manuel Perez advocated for the quarter-million-dollar increase in the Department of Animal Services’ budget, mainly for continuation of pet adoption campaigns intended to attain a near-term goal of turning the county’s shelters into “no kill” facilities, where more than 90% of impounded pets leave alive.
As it stands now, the county has a projected $46 million structural budget deficit going into 2026-27.
The proposed $10.36 billion appropriations plan represents a roughly 3.5% increase from the 2025-26 budget, which totaled $9.98 billion.
The new blueprint indicated that 30% of allocations would be dedicated to health and hospital services, followed by 23% for public safety units, 19% for human services, 11% for public works, 9% for internal support to departments and 7% for agencies dedicated to various governmental operations, such as the Office of County Counsel.
The county’s composite reserves should top out at $584 million by the start the new fiscal on July 1. However, earlier projections had put the figure at $650 million.
More than two-thirds of the county budget is composed of programmed spending, including federal and state earmarks for specific uses, along with grants and related external source revenue. The board has little control over those dollars.