{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"County $6.1 million in the hole","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":390,"description":"December 12, 2022, Sarah Reith — The Board of Supervisors is looking for $6.1 million to balance its books for Fiscal Year 2021/22, as costs and interest rates soar and sales tax decreases. \r\n\r\nThe county reached a tentative agreement with its largest employee union for a 2% Cost of Living Adjustment, which it might be able to fund with a pension reserve account. The self-funded healthcare plan that was in place when the county racked up a $3.6 million deficit has now been swapped out for a pool plan that will require an increase in employee contributions. That’s supposed to save the county $685,000 a year, but unknown future obligations are likely to be sizable.\r\n\r\nAt last week’s budget workshop, the Board reviewed an analysis of the costs for building the new jail for mentally ill inmates, which includes millions in staffing. \r\n\r\nThe Board also heard a reminder that the county is still waiting on more than $9 million of covid relief money promised by FEMA. That money has been borrowed from the treasury, and the interest is not recoverable.\r\n\r\nAnd there’s been no paper trail documenting the direction that former auditor Lloyd Weer allegedly received from the State Controller’s office in 2016, telling him the county should spend down the healthcare reserves by not paying into the health plan for three months out of the year or requiring employees to pay into it.\r\n\r\nSupervisor Ted Williams described the situation to Assembly member Jim Wood last week, and asked him for help from the state. \r\n\r\n“I don’t know, when I’ve voted on balanced budgets in the past, whether they were actually balanced,” Williams said. “That’s coming to light. We have a health plan that was millions over, and part of that was due to a holiday. I understand that’s because we got a call from the state. The state said we had accumulated too much money. We needed to spend it down. I don’t know what department of the state or why they would have done that by phone instead of writing…our finances...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}