Santa Cruz County Executive Officer Carlos Palacios plays a major role in the county budget. (Marcello Hutchinson-Trujillo — Santa Cruz Local)

The county budget funds county services across 22 departments, from law enforcement to parks to health care. It pays for the equivalent of about 2,724 full-time employees. 

At budget hearings June 3 and June 4, county staff revisited proposed cuts to the Health Services Agency, including layoffs and cancelled grants. State funding changes have left shortfalls for local health programs, county staff have said.

Following community outcry and requests from supervisors, a revised proposed budget to be presented Tuesday partially softens those cuts. The revised proposal includes:

• Money to delay the end of in-house laboratory and X-ray services until September, rather than July. After the facilities close, county clinic patients would be referred to other clinics for X-rays and lab tests.

• Partial restoration of funding for the Mental Health Client Action Network, a peer-run mental health support organization in the city of Santa Cruz. County staff requested that the city contribute funding, but Santa Cruz City Manager Matt Huffaker “responded they are unable to contribute to the contract without a holistic review of their homelessness response programming,” county staff wrote in a report.

• Maintaining a syringe litter cleanup contract with the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County.

• A plan to keep operating the Gemma House, a facility for women exiting jail, by transferring the program from New Life Community Services to Janus of Santa Cruz. Janus would use state funding to run the program.

• Keeping some mental health services at the Freedom Campus Health Center.

The restored health services funding further draws down the county’s contingency fund, which acts as emergency savings and sits below the county-recommended level.

The revised county budget proposal would still include layoffs for laboratory workers at county health clinics and a reduced pay rate for residential mental health facilities. The reduced pay rate could endanger Casa Pacific, a residential program for people with Medi-Cal who leave psychiatric hospitals. 

A representative from nonprofit Encompass Community Services, which operates Casa Pacific, said Tuesday that if the reduced pay rate is approved, the organization may have to shutter the facility. Encompass announced the closure of another mental health facility in the county last month. 

Pay raises for supervisors

Separately on Tuesday morning, county supervisors are expected to vote on whether to grant themselves a pay raise. 

County policy ties supervisors’ pay to 62% the salary of a Superior Court Judge. The supervisors’ pay would increase about 2.6%, to $151,731 from $147,857 annually. The pay hike would return to the supervisors for final consideration June 24 and would start 61 days later.

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