As the Kern County Board of Supervisors neared its finalization of the county budget for fiscal year 2021-2022, nine community-based and labor organizations collectively submitted the following joint statement into public record during the Kern County Board of Supervisors 9:00 am session on Tuesday, August 24th, 2021.
“It’s that time of year when the Kern County Board of Supervisors’ propose and build the Kern County Budget for FY 2021-2022, yet again it fails to meet the fundamental freedoms and critical needs of the majority of Kern residents.
From functional public roads to safety for our most vulnerable children, the Board of Supervisors continues to make a bad situation worse – despite the fact that Kern County has more than enough funds to move Kern County forward in all these critical areas and more – without raising a cent in taxes.
From broken vehicles to broken homes, to homelessness, Kern County residents are suffering because this Board of Supervisors short-changed our community time and time again.
When it comes to mental health, our community is grossly underserved. Our county’s suicide rate is 35% higherthan the statewide average, while the number of mental health practitioners per thousand residents is 47% lower than the statewide average[1]. That’s not a coincidence.
This budget continues a long-standing pattern of underestimating revenue, over-estimating expenditures (which are kept down partly because there are so many unfilled vacancies on the county payroll), and then adding millions of dollars to the county’s positive net position. Kern County Government is now worth $900,432,000 – that’s up over $821 million in the last five years[2]! They’ve been putting money away, even in the “challenging years.”.
The proposed budget continues these games – it projects a “balanced” budget that ignores the fact that the County is receiving $174.8 million in funds as a result of the American Rescue Plan . While these practices may make the balance sheet look good, when it comes to our health, our safety, and our quality of life, Kern residents are facing a huge – and growing – deficit.
These public services are a county responsibility – one that has gone unmet for years. The Board of Supervisors is playing a cynical game – their proposed budget claims that they are “adding” positions for mental health workers. Yet, they make these proposals knowing that the positions they claim to fund won’t be filled because the pay is so low[3]. Their own budget document admits as much: “Despite efforts, the department continues having difficulty keeping its authorized positions filled[4].”
As of July 2021, the Department of Behavioral Services has 136 vacancies, and Kern residents are suffering the consequences[5]. It’s also worth noting that for all their talk, the approved staffing level of the department was 952 back in 2020-21[6]. Currently, only 944 of those positions are funded, but the proposed budget goes even further – slashing both funded and authorized positions to just 878 and 941, respectively[7]. Our entire community suffers due to this negligence.
Kern County has similarly neglected its IHSS program, which provides home care to seniors, people with disabilities including children with special and developmental needs and is a critical program to protect, provide independence, and allow this population to thrive during the pandemic and beyond. From 2015 to 2019, the average number of IHSS recipients who lost access to quality care more than tripled from 296 to 923 consumers per month. Though the needs for home care in Kern county is growing year by year, the County has refused to provide competitive, quality home care jobs and close its bargaining contract with IHSS workers, forcing this too-small workforce to subsist on minimum wage.
Our county needs to invest in parks, sidewalks, and streetlights for all our communities.
The Proposed Budget pays lip service to the county’s homelessness problems – but their inaction in the face of what is truly a growing crisis speaks volumes. Between 2018-2021, the total number of Kern County residents experiencing homelessness grew by 143%[8].
The County Budget proposal talks about what they will do to help people experiencing homelessness — but they only spend money sent to them from Sacramento or Washington. Unlike other counties, the Kern Board of Supervisors is proposing that Kern county spend ZERO local dollars on much-needed permanent, affordable, subsidized housing and outreach[9]. It’s no surprise that a report put out by Federal Government in 2020 found that, out of 59 “Largely Urban CoCs,” Kern County has[10]:
- The fourth-highest percentage of unsheltered people experiencing homelessness[11].
- The fifth-largest percentage of people experiencing homelessness[12].
- The fourth-largest percentage of veterans experiencing homelessness[13].
County governments do need to balance the books – but they shouldn’t be making a “profit” when it comes at the expense of the residents they are supposed to serve. That’s what the Kern County Board of Supervisors has done – the proof is all in their own official documents. It all means that Kern County CAN do much, much more for residents without raising a penny in taxes. The Board of Supervisors needs to do their job.
Enough is enough! We need a budget that works for ALL Kern County residents!”
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The American Civil Liberties Union – Southern California
The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment
Democratic Women of Kern
Dolores Huerta Foundation
Faith in the Valley
Kern, Inyo, and Mono Counties Central Labor Council
Service Employees International Union, Local 521
Sierra Club – Kern-Kaweah Chapter
United Domestic Workers/American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3930
