Guest opinion column by County Supervisor Sue Frost–
Last month, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors adopted our final budget for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. This was the first county budget that I have participated in, so I wanted to share with you my thoughts. In short, I am pleased that we were able to fund so many vital programs and departments, but remain fearful that we lack the long-term vision for how to make us more fiscally responsible.
I believe we can improve our fiscal health by using a three-tiered approach.
First, we need to focus on the most critical things that we provide, and have the bravery to reject new programs and services that are of less vital importance. Earlier this year when I issued a survey of Citrus Heights, it came back to show that the number one most important issue was public safety, closely followed by transportation (the number three issue, which was a distant third, was business development). So let’s put a heavy emphasis on funding our cops and our roads.
Second, we need to slow the growth of county government employees. Not only do county employees cost us money in terms of salary and benefits, but every employee we hire raises our unfunded pension liability, which is currently at a staggering $1.2 billion.
When the great recession hit, our reserves weren’t high enough and we had to make massive cuts to the number of employees we have and significantly cut the level of service we provide. But now that we are climbing out of the recession, departments are trying to get back to their pre-recession levels of employees. It seems obvious to me that our pre-recession levels were too high, and that we should make do with what we have. We currently have over 11,000 full-time employees – I believe we can provide excellent service to Sacramento County without the need to greatly increase this number.
Last, we need to make a far greater investment into our reserves than we currently do. We have the lowest reserves out of any large county in California — so low, that the second worst county is in six times better shape than us. If we had to rely solely on reserves, we would only have enough money to last us eight days. Unfortunately, our current policy of investing 10 percent of our general fund increases will solve our problem in about 80 years. I propose we increase our investment to 40 percent each year, which will fix things in about 20 years.
Focusing mainly on critical programs, slowing the growth, and investing in reserves are incredibly difficult things to do. It is easy to agree to these in principle, but when it comes to actually making tough decisions, most elected officials cave to the pressure of wanting to make everyone happy. But in my opinion, making tough fiscal decisions like these is something regular citizens of Citrus Heights have to do on a daily basis — and so too should your elected representatives.
Sacramento County Supervisor Sue Frost formerly served as a Citrus Heights councilwoman and currently represents District 4, which includes Citrus Heights. Frost will hold her next community meeting on Oct. 27 at 7:30 a.m. at the Coco’s restaurant located at 7887 Madison Ave. She can be contacted at (916) 874-5491, or SupervisorFrost@saccounty.net.
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