XPost: alt.government.employees, alt.politics.republicans, alt.society.labor-unions
XPost: sac.politics

Amid a lengthy and tense couple hours of public testimony Tuesday morning opposing the Santa Cruz County health department’s proposed layoffs and
cuts to several services, Kimberly Waller, the county’s suicide prevention program coordinator, presented the board of supervisors with a
proclamation recognizing May as Mental Health Awareness Month.

Waller cited data that 1 in 5 adults in Santa Cruz County experience some
form of mental illness, and extolled the effectiveness of, and right to,
proper treatment.

Yet, Waller’s presentation of the proclamation was loaded with context. If
the supervisors approve the Health Services Agency budget proposed last
week by director Mónica Morales, Waller would be one of 12 employees laid
off from her job.

Andrea Turnbull, Waller’s boss, told the board of supervisors that without Waller, the county would struggle to accomplish the same suicide
prevention strategy it approved earlier in the year, an important effort
for a county that has a higher-than-average rate of suicide.

Thus marked the tenor of Tuesday’s supervisors meeting, the first chance
for residents and county staff to publicly react to the HSA’s plan and
point to the real world costs of austerity. It also marked the first
action by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521, the
county government’s largest union, to combat the cuts and layoffs.

The county’s largest department, HSA covers everything from public health
to water resources and, in the 2024-25 fiscal year, budgeted more than 733 full-time-equivalent positions. In an email sent to staff last week,
Morales said “reduced state and federal revenues, grants coming to an end
and increased costs across our operations” had created a dire financial
picture for the coming year, and she proposed laying off about 12
employees as part of a broader effort to eliminate more than 74 positions within the agency, a significant number of which are within the Behavioral Health Division.

Morales’ proposal would also cut funding for several programs, posing an existential risk to the Mental Health Client Action Network — which
provides daytime services for the unhoused — and Gemma House, a reentry
and recovery program for women.

SEIU 521 chapter president Max Olkowski-Laetz told Lookout that he
expected the HSA to propose cuts and layoffs, but criticized Morales’ team
for focusing layoffs on front-line workers.

“In this county, and really across the country, we have an issue where,
when times are tough, we tend to focus on cutting preventative services
first because it’s very difficult to put a number to how much money preventative service is saving you, whereas it’s very easy to put a number
to how much it costs,” Olkowski-Laetz said.

One of the major contributing factors to the HSA’s financial struggle is a recalculation from the state on reimbursement rates for covered medical services. However, Olkowski-Laetz contends the county’s own mismanagement
has exacerbated the problem, pointing to the county’s “bloated” ranks of high-salaried managerial positions, a callback to one of the union’s main arguments during last year’s contract negotiations.

“We are sending the message loud and clear that this doesn’t end here,” Olkowski-Laetz said. “This is going to be a long and grueling process, and we’re going to do everything we can to protect our people, to protect the community that we serve, and to make sure that personnel does not make
panicked decisions to cut preventative services that end up costing us
more money down the line.”

Tuesday’s meeting marked the opening salvo in the public budget process.
The supervisors will not hold another public hearing on the budget until
June 3, when the HSA will seek approval for its financial plan. The
elected officials will not take a final vote on the budget until June 10.

The supervisors did unanimously vote Tuesday to direct staff to provide
some alternatives to the proposed layoffs and program cuts before the
budget comes back in June. Supervisor Justin Cummings (District 3),
however, issued a warning to the public that this year’s budget process
would be painful.

“We’re going to be entering into some pretty dark times here,” Cummings
said.

https://lookout.co/santa-cruz-county-budget-proposed-layoffs-program-cuts- set-off-fight-between-county-and-its-largest-union/

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