Santa Barbara County is aiming to avoid layoffs and focus on budget cuts instead, despite budget shortfalls in two departments.
Officials from the County Health Department and the Department of Social Services will appear separately before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors again on Tuesday to discuss their budgets and plans to balance them.
The Board of Supervisors will review the new budget proposals at its weekly meeting Tuesday in Santa Maria.
The two departments previously submitted budget plans to the Board of Supervisors in October, proposing layoffs, eliminating vacant positions, and reducing services.
County Health told the Board on Oct. 7 that it was expecting a $5.1 million revenue loss that would bring its deficit to $7.6 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
The deficit was largely driven by cuts in federal funding, primarily new restrictions that ban county medical sites from providing medical care to patients with “unsatisfactory immigration status.”
A court order currently freezes the restrictions, but if implemented, they could impact an estimated 7,500 patients across the county. County Health had begun the process of transferring undocumented patients to new doctors who could treat them.
“What we bring before you is not because we mismanaged funds or we overspent or we did not perform,” Public Health Director Mouhanad Hammami told the board at a previous meeting. “What we bring before you is something that is out of our control.”
Since the last meeting, County Health has stopped transferring undocumented patients but has identified 31 medical facilities that can take new patients if the restrictions are implemented.
County Health originally proposed getting rid of 55 positions from its department, 36 of which would have been full-time employees. However, since the department is not transferring patients, it is no longer recommending layoffs.
The Board of Supervisors decided against making a decision and instead instructed County Health to meet with union leaders from the Service Employees International Union. County Health met with Local 620 and Local 721 to discuss how to reduce the impact of layoffs, but talks are paused.
DSS also announced that it was facing a $7.4 million deficit for the fiscal year. Since then, the department has refined its estimates and found an additional $0.5 million gap for this year.
DSS previously proposed eliminating 121 positions. Of that number, 65 would have been current full-time employees, and the rest would have been vacant positions.
Daniel Nielson, Social Services director, told the board that layoffs would not eliminate any services that the county is legally required to offer. However, he said the lack of staff would affect wait times.
In a new proposal to the board, Social Services announced that it is no longer looking at layoffs but will still eliminate 58 positions. The department was proposing getting rid of 56 roles, but two positions have opened since October.
The elimination of these jobs will create an additional $1.4 million in funding for the department.
During the October meeting, the Board of Supervisors discussed a one-time transfer of funds from the county’s general fund to bridge the gap in the department’s funding for the rest of the year. The plan would allow the department to continue until the county begins discussions for next year’s budget in April.
