How Your Tax Dollars Will Be Spent, By Bruce McPherson, Supervisor

from Scotts Valley Times: July 2022

Training to Avert a Tragedy, By Donna Lind, Mayor, City of Scotts Valley

FEATURED COLUMNIST

How Your Tax Dollars Will Be Spent

By Bruce McPherson, Supervisor, Fifth District

Approving the County’s budget each June may not seem like an exciting undertaking for most. But for me it is one of the best moments of the year, and this budget season did not disappoint.

Reading and reviewing the budget, which means receiving presentations from several County departments about the great work they do and the challenges they face, is a critical job of the Board of Supervisors. The budget approved on June 28 represented the tenth one I’ve worked on since taking office in 2013, and I am as impressed as ever with the breadth of services we offer, the caliber of workers we employ, and the strategic initiatives we address through our spending.

While a portion of our $1.03 billion budget is comprised of state and federal pass-through dollars to address health and human services, the County has a General Fund of more than $683 million that pays for public safety and other core functions, a few of which are new this year and deserve to be highlighted.

This budget provides the first full year of funding for the new Public Defender’s Office, which will launch in July with a team of County employees headed up by our first Public Defender Heather Rogers following decades of great service by our contracted indigent defense firm, Biggam Christensen & Minsloff. We are also providing new staff resources for our Sheriff and District Attorney while making progress on improvements to Juvenile Hall. Additionally, we are continuing to work on our South County Service Center, which will provide vital county resources in Watsonville, and improving our land-use services through the combining of our Public Works and Planning functions into a new Community Development and Infrastructure Department that will feature a Unified Permit Center. We are also assigning about $5 million for our Measure D roadwork in the coming year, which for District 5 will focus on the Felton area and Quail Hollow Road from Glen Arbor Road to East Zayante Road.

We also increased our support for community programs through our Collective of Results and Evidence (CORE), spending more than $6 million in partnership with the City of Santa Cruz.

The competitive process was based on a revised ranking system, but because it resulted in some long-time awardees not receiving a grant, the Board agreed to make room for a few additional recipients and use one-time money to provide a ramp-down for those who had received large grants in the previous cycle but were not funded this time.

We were fortunate this year to provide the extra funding, thanks to additional Human Services revenue from the state. We were also able to keep better pace with rising expenses thanks to a majority of voters agreeing on the June ballot to increase the County’s lodging tax and placing a fee on single-use cups.

However, many economic indicators predict a looming recession, which means likely belt-tightening in the future, which makes me glad we also added back to our reserves after tapping them during the pandemic.

We are still hopeful the federal government will increase our re-imbursement for the $130 million in Covid-19 response funding incurred by the County. But as it stands, we may not recoup as much as $19 million.

I’ll close on a positive financial note. The Veterans Village in Ben Lomond received $6.4 million in Project Homekey funding from the state. The first to receive the homelessness grant in our County, the project expects to house up to 20 veterans and family members in the former Jaye’s Timberlane motel, which will undergo renovations.

I hope you can attend the wonderful Scotts Valley Independence Day celebration on July 3, and I wish everyone in District 5 a Happy Fourth of July and a great summer. n ••• As always, please contact my office at Fifth.District@santacruzcounty.us or 831-4542200 if we can be of assistance. “CZU Fire Grand Jury” from page 8

The mixture of soil and plant material is noncombustible. The masticator is seeing use outside of projects funded by grants.

RCD runs chipping programs to facilitate creation of defensible space around buildings.

Expensive

The Santa Cruz County WUI is 61 square miles, of which 59% has residences.

There are 640 acres in a square mile, so there are 61 x 0.59 x 640 = 23,000 acres of occupied WUI.

Last year, two grants totaling $7.7 million ($3 million + $4.7 million) funded vegetation-reduction projects on 1,384 acres (454 + 930), which works out to $5,600 per acre.

If these projects are representative of the cost, then treating 23,000 acres would cost about $130 million.

This estimate includes vegetation reduction only on occupied WUI – not critical infrastructure or access and egress routes, which are essential to protect the community and provide safe movement.

This survey is 12 years old.

Santa Cruz County received at least $9 million in CalFire grants last year. If the County received a similar amount each year, it would take 14 years to complete high-priority vegetation reduction.

It is imperative the highest risk areas receive treatment first and not wait

until the end of the 14 years.

Vegetation will be growing back; hence, after 14 years, it will be time to start over. The County’s success in obtaining grant funding means it is able to make some progress. It would certainly be preferable to complete the work in less time.

RCD has achieved real obtaining

grants for vegetation reduction. In 2020–2021, the RCD obtained a $1.3 million grant from the CalFire Early Action California Climate Investments Program for shaded fuel breaks along Summit Road.

The willingness of the agencies to partner with others, and to publish long-term property management plans, were factors in getting the awards.

We calculated that Santa Cruz County received at least $9 million in CalFire grants in 2020–2021.

CalFire grants may only be awarded for projects on private land if there is an imminent threat to public

rights of way or public infrastructure.

Wildfire does not respect landownership; a fire may start on private land and quickly spread to a nearby community or critical infrastructure. The Santa Cruz Mountain Stewardship Network is the major player advocating for vegetationmanagement work on private land.

Contract Expires in 2023

The Santa Cruz County Fire Department serves the unincorporated County, including Bonny Doon, Davenport, Loma Prieta, Corralitos, Las Cumbres, and South Skyline. This area overlaps almost entirely with the State Responsibility Area.