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The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors this week approved a nearly $7.3 billion budget for the coming fiscal year.

The new 2026-2027 budget was balanced using ongoing revenues and “one-time departmental funds” to tackle rising costs and lower funding from state and federal sources, county officials said in a news release Tuesday.

The budget proposal was included in the supervisor’s consent calendar, which was approved unanimously without comment Tuesday following public hearings in April.

“As we navigate continued fiscal uncertainty, our priority remains protecting essential services, supporting vulnerable residents, and maintaining long-term fiscal stability,” Supervisor Diane Burgis said. “Community input during budget discussions will help guide the County’s priorities and decisions in the coming year and beyond.”

One of the biggest fiscal challenges facing many local governments across the country was the passage of H.R. 1, the federal funding bill drafted by Congressional Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump.

The so-called “big beautiful bill” dramatically slashes money for food assistance and health care for millions of Americans.

In Contra Costa County, it will jeopardize Medicare for 93,000 people and CalFresh food benefits for 17,600 people, according to county officials.

Roughly 53 percent of the county’s budget is funded by state and federal sources.

To balance the budget, seven county departments found cost savings totaling a little more than $91 million by leaving unfilled positions vacant during the fiscal year.

That savings includes $65.3 million from Health Services, $23 million from Employment and Human Services, nearly $1 million from the library system, $630,000 from the Public Defender’s Office, $379,000 from Child Support Services, $503,000 from the Department of Information Technology and $427,000 from Animal Services.

To help cope with state and federal budget cuts, the Board of Supervisors placed Measure B on the June ballot.

Measure B is a five-year, five-eighth-cent sales tax that aims to raise $150 million annually to backfill federal funding cuts to health care and other essential services.

The county estimates that its health system will lose more than $300 million over the next five years because of the federal cuts, and the ballot argument for Measure B states that the tax is crucial to make up that deficit.

“It exempts food, housing, and medical care, so most of the money from this tax will come from corporate or large luxury purchases,” according to the ballot argument in favor of the measure.

— Story by Kiley Russell, Bay City News

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  1. This report from left-wing Bay City News reads like a tax-promoter advertisement placed by Contra Costa County’s already overpaid administrative staff and the County’s own 15 employee unions.

    1. The tentative 2026-2027 Contra Costa County budget (actually $7.248 Billion), were it to remain unchanged at the July 1 start of new Fiscal Year 26-27, would still be 60.7% higher than in FY20-21, when the County passed Measure X, itself a 0.500% sales tax increase. Bay Area CPI inflation, meanwhile, has been 18.4% since Measure X’s passage. The spending increase is already 3.3 x the inflation rate.

    2. Measure B, on the June 2nd ballot, would add another 0.625% in new sales taxes, raising every part of the County above the statutory 2% limit on local sales taxes, over and above the existing statewide 7.250% rate. 7.25% + 2.00% = an effective statutory-limit total of 9.25%. If Measure B passes, sales taxes in the County will instead range from 9.375% to 10.875% — with another 0.500% transit tax on the ballot in November.

    3. All the County’s tax promoters had to do in bypassing the relevant statute was to get an on-call legislator to include Contra Costa County in an existing Los Angeles budget-busting bill, say shazam(!) — and poof! No more 2% limit on local sales taxes.

    4. As is, the County’s 2026 own union-member employment head count is up 4% over 2025 — 10,308 vs. 9,913. And 9 of the County’s union contracts expire 4 weeks after Election Day.

    5. As of 2024 (last year available), 4,781 County employees were already above $150,000 in salary plus benefit compensation. 3,056 of those exceeded $200,000. 1,045 of those exceeded $300,000. 278 of those exceeded $400,000, with 78 above $500,000. How many executive-level employees does the County need? How many should we pay for?

    6 Measure X, the template for Measure B, was supposed to collect $81 Million annually in additional new sales-tax revenues. Instead, it’s been over $120 Million annually, and Measure X has another 15 years to run. Meanwhile, Measure X has accumulated $263 Million in unspent funds. Those dollars, rather than more new sales-tax revenue, could and should be dedicated to any healthcare deficiency that actually develops.

    7. And speaking of excess funds, the County has a General Fund balance of $1.21 Billion, of which the unassigned portion is $585 Million. Both figures are more than 4 times the County’s own announced standard for reserves on hand.

    8. County supervisors tried to get away with a supposed $307 Million ANNUAL healthcare budget deficiency, until I and others pointed to figures stated by their own financial advisory firm (itself holding an $8 Million contract). That reality was a potentially CUMULATIVE $307 Million by FY28-29. Their chief financial advisor then returned with a new slide showing larger potential amounts in FY29-30 and FY30-31 — in a new presidential administration and 2 new Congresses from now. As stated in ballot arguments, Measure B is at best premature.

    9. Due to some funding restoration already announced, the new budget deficiency projected in an updated County slide was a cumulative $219 Million by FY28-29. Even that is speculative; and again, Measure X could cover that amount, under its originally announced purposes.

    10. “Most of the money from this tax will come from corporate or large luxury purchases”? As the East Bay Times said (among many other factors in opposing Measure B itself), “State data indicates that the average person in the county currently pays at least $1,050 a year in sales tax.” Food/grocery exemptions? Not for prepared foods, soft drinks, beer and wine, ice, many convenience grocery store items, etc. Housing exemptions? Not for materials used to build and maintain houses. Exemptions for medical care? Not for over-the-counter medicines.

    11. Measure X presented an urgent, COVID-time focus on healthcare and “life-saving services.” Now, allegedly, “lives will be lost” without Measure B. In fact, Measure X’s millions have been used for multiple other purposes. And Measure B’s 9 authorizing ordinance, like Measure X’s, again exposes this new tax as “solely for general governmental purposes and not for specific purposes.” County politicians and administrators could spend Measure B’s millions on whatever they consider “governmental” — as they’ve already been doing in Measure X’s first 5 of 20 years.

    12. Rather than voting to continue engorging the already overcompensated County spending apparatus, attentive, fair-minded voters will vote NO on Measure B — thereby to leave taxpayers, especially those already struggling with affordability problems, with more of their own money to spend for items THEY see as needs.

    Fool us once, shame on them. Fool us twice, shame on us. Don’t be taken in again by the County’s cynical deceptions; vote NO on B.

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