Sacramento County supervisors did what they had to Wednesday, cutting another $14 million and laying off more than 100 employees in a midyear budget fix. Even more pain is in store for the budget that kicks in July 1, when they will likely need to find another $118 million in savings.
But in crisis, there is also opportunity. It’s time for supervisors – and local officials across California – to get past short-term patching and to look at bigger and bolder ways to provide services at less cost.
One promising area for savings is consolidation – combining agencies or departments that are doing the same job, even if they are in different local governments.
It’s encouraging that consolidation is on the agenda for both interim County Executive Steve Szalay and Gus Vina, who today becomes Sacramento’s acting city manager. With financial gimmicks and easy solutions used up, their elected boards also appear interested.
Over the next weeks, Szalay plans to ask supervisors for permission to start studying a series of potential consolidations. During the budget hearings this week, Supervisor Don Nottoli insisted the county needs to aggressively seek partners in the public, private and nonprofit sectors.
Vina, who is facing a shortfall of between $35 million and $40 million for 2010-11, plans to wrap consolidation ideas into the recommended budget he must bring forward by May 1. He believes there are significant savings by getting rid of redundancies and overlap, though he said action might have to wait until next year.
One obvious candidate for possible consolidation is animal care, which is commonly provided by one combined agency. This fiscal year, the city is spending $3 million on animal care, while the county is spending about $5 million and last October opened a state-of-the-art $23 million animal shelter. Like other agencies, both have taken their share of budget cuts (county animal care lost four more positions in this round).
The sooner some ideas can come to fruition the better. Even if California’s economy does start rebounding by next year, local officials can’t pretend they can return to business as usual.
Both Szalay and Vina seem to accept that fact. “We have to be poised for when there’s a turnaround to find different ways to do business,” Szalay says.
“If we find smart consolidations, we should do them, regardless of the economy,” agrees Vina.
Instead of chipping away at programs and laying off workers year after year, city and county elected officials would best serve taxpayers by ending the needless and costly overlap of city and county services.