Supervisors Debate Timeline For Making Looming ‘Tough Decisions’
Sonora, CA — While some votes on things like fee increases will happen this month, the more significant Tuolumne County budget decisions will occur after the first of the year, when two new incoming board members, Steve Griefer and Mike Holland, take office.
They will join current board members Jaron Brandon, Ryan Campbell and Anaiah Kirk.
The county is likely to see staff and service reductions in government next year.
Following the defeat of the Measure Z sales tax measure in November, expiring federal fire grants, and other financial shortfalls, the supervisors today voted to schedule the annual board workshop for January 7-8, shortly after the new members are sworn in and existing members Kathleen Haff and David Goldemberg, exit. The workshop will be a month or two earlier than it is typically held (usually occurs in February or March), and the reasoning is to get a jumpstart on the budgetary challenges.
Two supervisors, Anaiah Kirk and Kathleen Haff, argued that waiting until January to address these issues is too long.
The scheduling of the workshop was on the consent portion of today’s meeting agenda, meaning it was anticipated to be uncontroversial.
District Three Supervisor Kirk requested that it be removed so that more discussion could be had. He said, “I think some tough decisions should have already been made by now. The longer we wait, the harder, and deeper, the changes are going to be.”
Supervisor Kathleen Haff agreed, and argued, “I want to bring to the public’s attention that this board made a promise to each other that we (existing members) were going to make the hard choices. And now, that is not going to happen. It is being deferred to the new year and to the new board members.”
District Two Supervisor Ryan Campbell took issue with Haff’s allegation that the board was reversing its original commitment, and countered that difficult decisions were being made this month related to things like fee increases, but indicated that it was not realistic to make some of the other more time-consuming deeper cuts, and restructuring, before the end of the month.
During the public comment portion, two members of the community also weighed in and pushed the board to “right the ship” sooner, rather than later.
District One Supervisor David Goldemberg concluded, “The new board members coming on (Griefer and Holland) need to have some ownership over where we are going on the budget. We can do some of the decisions between now and the end of the year, and we’re talking about some of these fees, but beyond that, some of the hard decisions, have to come from the entire board, and some of these new board members.”
The process of making more difficult decisions, including potential organizational changes, and related position/service cuts, will be hashed out by county leaders, including the new members, starting in January.
