June 30 BOS Agenda Explained
What You Need to Know
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Tuesday’s meeting is almost entirely about one thing: approving the county’s budget for the coming fiscal year.
The budget determines how more than $340 million will be spent over the next year and shapes everything from public safety and roads to libraries, social services, employee positions and capital projects.
Unlike many meetings with numerous agenda items, this one is focused almost exclusively on finances.
Here’s what to watch.
Consent Calendar
Temporary County Counsel Help
The Board is being asked to continue using outside legal counsel while the County Counsel’s Office transitions under its new leadership.
Originally hired while the county searched for a new County Counsel, the outside firm’s workload has decreased and the agreement is shifting from a flat monthly payment to hourly billing beginning July 1.
Item 2
Groveland Fire Assessment
This item doesn’t create a new tax countywide.
Instead, the County owns several properties inside the Groveland Community Services District, and those properties received ballots asking whether they should pay a new fire assessment.
The Board will discuss how those county owned parcels should vote and may authorize the County Administrator to cast the ballots.
If approved, the assessment on county owned property would total approximately $5,416 per year.
Appointments
Tuolumne Public Power Agency
The Board will briefly act as the governing board of the Tuolumne Public Power Agency.
The proposed budget lowers operating costs significantly because PG&E transmission expenses have dropped following a settlement over transmission rates.
The proposed electric rate for participating agencies would be 11.47 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Year-End Budget Adjustments
Before starting next year’s budget, the Board must officially close out this fiscal year.
The only significant adjustment is moving $418,740 from contingency funds to cover additional cleanup costs from the 2025 TCU Lightning Fire debris removal.
The Main Event
FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget
This is the meeting’s biggest item.
The proposed budget totals approximately $340.2 million That’s about $8.2 million (2.4%) larger than last year’s adopted budget.
County officials say revenue continues to grow, largely because of increases in Property taxes and Transient Occupancy Tax (hotel/short-term rental taxes)
Overall general revenues are projected to increase about 2.6%.
Staffing Changes
One of the biggest changes isn’t money. It’s people.
The county proposes reducing authorized staffing from: 719 full-time positions to 711.5 positions
Many of these aren’t layoffs. Instead, they involve reorganizing positions, reclassifying jobs or leaving vacancies unfilled after employees leave.
Some notable changes include
Office of Emergency Services officially moves into the Sheriff’s budget.
The Office of Emergency Services officially becomes part of the Sheriff’s budget. While this budget simply reflects that change, the restructuring itself was one of the county’s more closely watched public safety debates over the past year.
GIS becomes its own internal service fund.
The county’s GIS division would become its own internal service department, with other county departments paying for mapping and geographic information services as needed.
Recreation receives a Parks & Recreation Manager.
Library and Recreation would each receive their own dedicated leadership, with the current combined director position replaced by a County Librarian and a Parks and Recreation Manager.
County Counsel swaps an attorney position for an executive legal assistant.
The County Counsel’s Office would replace one attorney position with an Executive Legal Assistant as part of a departmental reorganization. Why was an attorney position eliminated, and how will that affect the office’s workload?
Library leadership is reorganized.
The county is proposing to separate Library and Recreation leadership, giving the library its own director and Recreation its own manager.
Multiple Sheriff’s positions are reclassified.
Several Sheriff’s Office positions would be reclassified or retitled as part of a department-wide reorganization, including communications, records, fiscal, jail, and Animal Control positions.
Several Social Services positions are eliminated or frozen.
Important context
The budget also proposes shifting $500,000 in Realignment funding into Social Services ($300,000 from Public Health and $200,000 from Behavioral Health). County staff say this is intended to better match funding with increased demand for Social Services.
That raises an obvious question. If Social Services is seeing increased demand and receiving additional funding, why are four positions being eliminated and five others left vacant?
The agenda packet doesn’t explain that. It’s exactly the kind of question I’d hope the Board asks during the budget discussion.
Public Safety
Several notable public safety investments appear in the budget.
Fire
The Fire Department receives:
$190,000 for a generator at Station 51
$250,000 set aside toward purchasing a future fire engine
The budget also reflects the expiration of the federal SAFER Grant.
Roads
Road funding increases.
The Roads Fund receives approximately $1.5 million from the General Fund, up from about $1.14 million last year. Numerous bridge, paving and road improvement projects also appear in the capital project list.
Capital Projects
Several larger projects are funded, including:
Moving county departments out of leased office space
HVAC replacement at Animal Control
Ambulance building remodel
Museum entrance improvements
Tuolumne Memorial Hall sewer repairs
Fire Station 51 improvements
Detention facility HVAC software upgrades
The county has budgeted over $6.5 million in capital projects.
What I’ll Be Watching
Budgets are easy to tune out. Hundreds of pages, countless line items, and enough accounting jargon to make your eyes glaze over. But the real story isn’t always in the spreadsheets. It’s in the discussion.
Here are a few things I’ll be watching for during Tuesday’s meeting:
Will there be any real debate? Budget hearings can sometimes become little more than formal approvals. We’ll be watching to see whether supervisors ask difficult questions or simply move the budget forward.
Will anyone discuss the reduction in county staffing? The proposed budget reduces authorized staffing from 719 to 711.5 full-time positions. Are these simply reorganizations, or could residents notice changes in county services?
What will be said about the Office of Emergency Services (OES)? The Office of Emergency Services has officially moved into the Sheriff’s budget, completing a restructuring that drew significant public attention over the past year.
Supervisors Griefer, Supervisor Holland, and Anaiah Kirk have compared the move to the county’s decision to place Animal Control under the Sheriff’s Office, arguing that change ultimately proved successful. OES, however, carries a much broader countywide mission, including disaster preparedness, emergency coordination, grant management, and recovery planning. It will be worth listening to see whether the Board discusses how the new structure will support those responsibilities going forward.
Will anyone question the county’s capital spending? More than $6.5 million is proposed for capital projects, including moving departments out of leased office space, building improvements, and public safety projects. Will the supervisors explain why these projects are the highest priorities?
Will there be discussion about shifting funds between departments? The proposed budget moves $500,000 from Public Health and Behavioral Health into Social Services. County staff say it better reflects current demand, but it will be worth hearing whether supervisors have questions or concerns.
By the end of the meeting, we’ll know whether this year’s budget was carefully debated or simply approved.
Either way, I’ll give it a full break down afterward so you don’t have to sift through the rhetoric.
Update (Friday, June 26)
After this article was published, the County released an amended agenda. Two additional items have been added before the budget hearing. The Board will consider amendments to labor agreements with the Deputy Sheriff’s Association and the County Management Association that update educational and professional certification incentive pay.
These changes have already been incorporated into the proposed budget and do not significantly change the budget discussion below.
