Welcome to budget season

For many years, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has been criticized for not spending its reserves. When I ran for election in 2018, I stressed that we must continue to be fiscally responsible, maintaining healthy reserves in case of an emergency. The coronavirus pandemic qualifies as an emergency and has certainly been difficult on everyone, but also is a prime example of why the county needs strong fiscal reserves.

San Diego County released their budget for fiscal year 2020-2021 and, for the first time in many years, we will be dipping into our reserves to continue to provide current levels of public safety and other services.

I believe that public safety is the No. 1 priority for county government, and it’s good to see the proposed budget call for over $2 billion to be spent on safety for our county.

Also, under the proposed plan, our Health and Human Services department will see a 9% increase, much of which will go toward COVID-19 response efforts.

For our unincorporated areas, the proposal calls for almost $24 million to be spent on homelessness. Along with homelessness, I believe we need to continue to address our behavioral health crisis in our county. Homelessness and mental health certainly have crossover, and I’m pleased to see the budget call for a 13% increase to address these issues.

Businesses are barely hanging on through the COVID-19 response. And, while the county doesn’t have the power to open them back up, I believe we need to do everything we can to keep them from permanent employee layoffs and closures. I will continue to push to safely and responsibly reopen businesses while protecting our vulnerable populations.

There are many more areas to this year’s proposed budget, which I encourage you to check out at, http://SanDiegoCounty.gov/openbudget. Once our budget is adopted, I will promise you that I will continue to make sure these dollars are spent as effectively as possible and keep the county’s finances in order.