Uncertainty, overwork and unfilled jobs dominate county budget hearings

Tough choices ahead as Sonoma County elected officials dig in on next year's spending plan

photo credit: Marc Albert/KRCB
Exterior shot, County Administration building, Santa Rosa, CA.

Sonoma County supervisors are spending this week hammering out a budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.

Each day, supervisors are being briefed by department and division heads about progress, problems and needs.

On Tuesday, officials heard from Health and Human Services, Public Health and Permit Sonoma.

Looming over the discussion...the multi-billion dollar deficit in Sacramento and how it will impact the county's bottom line. That's atop expiring grant funds and the end of COVID aid.

Supervisor Chris Coursey questioned Angela Struckmann, director of the department of Human Services about the impacts of changes to Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid, which resumed mandatory annual re-enrollment after Washington declared the COVID pandemic over. The change has resulted in eligible people finding out too late they've been knocked off the rolls.

"You mentioned the expiration of the automatic renewals. Is that adding to backlog problems, the lines out the door at the building on campus here? Is it causing people to lose Medi-Cal benefits?" Coursey asked.

"I would say yes to both," Struckmann replied. "Again, for years during the pandemic people's Medi-Cal just kept going, whether they continued to be eligible or not, because we didn't have to do the renewals," Struckmann said.

Some of the issues are because people weren't aware they had to fill out and return renewal paperwork, Struckmann added, and that staff turnover at the department left officials unable to keep pace.

Staffing, turnover and morale are also issues in other county departments.

Assistant Director of the Department of Health Services, Wendy Sanders, told the board the unit is overwhelmed.

"People are asked to do so much with not enough. Caseloads are tremendously high, especially in the behavioral health. Our nurses have high caseloads, and then when people leave, you get more work. As you know, many people are always saying can't health do this, or can't health do this? And our workers are like, 'we can't even handle what's on our plate.' It's about 130 F.T.E. right now, that we're short. I mean, it's significant. Where you need credentialed people to do the services and you don't," Sanders said.

Supervisors are scheduled to hear from the Sheriff's office on Wednesday.