Santa Barbara County Receives an “F” on DOGE Report Card
by Andy Caldwell
Today, I would like to share with you a glimpse into the waste and virtue-signaling in an echo chamber that passes as government service. This piece details three components of failure.
First, unsustainable salary and benefit packages for county employees that is absorbing more than half the county’s $1.6 billion budget.
Second, fees charged to new development that impair the revenue growth necessary to sustain a healthy economy.
Then finally, the economic doom loop representing a preposterous assertion that stems from all the above. Namely, that the resulting poverty from our stagnant economy is somehow deemed to be a form of economic stimulus!
First, consider the obscene salaries of county managers who received a raise just in time for Christmas. The following amounts are what these executives make every two weeks:
Behavioral Wellness Director $10,674.05; Social Services Director $10,715.38; Public Health Director $11,686.21 (the winner! $300k per year not including benefits and pension costs!); First Five Director $6,785.17; Planning & Development Director $9,149.24; Fire Chief $10,758.88; Chief Probation Officer $8,694.86; Child Support Services Director $7,918.95; Information Technology Director $10,061.55; County Counsel $11,191.14; Public Defender $11,257.99; Community Services Director $8,898.51.
Unfortunately, the salaries of the department heads are only the tip of the iceberg. Here is a chart representing the total salaries and benefits for all employees that was approved in the 2024/25 budget:
The cost per full-time employee, with benefits and pension, now averages $170,000 per year. Contextually, the county is dependent upon property taxes, sales taxes, and bed taxes to fund many of its operations (known as general fund departments and services), the rest of their budget is paid by state and federal tax dollars. Therein, you would think they would become business friendly to balance their budget. But because of their never-ending appetite for higher salaries, county supervisors instead end up raising fees for services, not to mention exorbitant fees on new development and existing business operations that hinder the private sector from bringing in additional revenues to the county by growing the economy.
The absolute worst of these fees are so-called traffic mitigation fees. The lame theory behind the fees posits that any new development must mitigate the traffic generated by their project, as if the traffic wasn’t already in the community. The worst of these fees include the area known as “Noleta,” the county-controlled area between the City of Santa Barbara and the City of Goleta.
To build a 7-11 24-hour convenience store slightly larger than 2,000 square feet, the county would charge the developer $1 million for traffic fees! Gas stations are $139,392 per pump. A bank with a drive-through is $819,278 per 1,000 square feet (on average $2.5 million). Meanwhile, the county continues to fall behind on maintaining the infrastructure it has in the form of roads, buildings, and parks to the tune of over $400 million. Again, a large part of this deficit has to do with exorbitant payouts to employees and stifling the growth that would increase base county revenues were it not for these ridiculously expensive charges to the private sector.
Making things worse, the County of Santa Barbara enacted a selfish and short-sighted policy known as 100% cost recovery that posits that all fee-based programs must provide 100% of the cost of administering the same including overhead costs. For instance, while the county may pay a county planner $40-$60 per hour in personal compensation, it charges applicants a base rate of $292 per hour for services. The difference between what the planner is paid vs what the county charges per hour is the cost of overhead. This policy has caused all the fees the county charges to become ridiculously expensive while at the same time it means the supervisors have no skin in the game when it comes to controlling the costs of the departments that charge fees. That is, the supervisors don’t care how much these departments charge as long as they don’t have to contribute to the programs from the county general fund.
You would think the board of supervisors would become more business-friendly to pay their bills and see people prosper.
But you would be wrong.
Instead, they are overseeing a massive rise in poverty exemplified by the explosive growth in the county’s departments which administers various public health and social welfare programs. These departments employ nearly 2,000 employees with a budget of $588 million per year and that doesn’t include the cost of benefits paid out to “clients” (some $76 million per month). For the breakdown of the benefits, consider the following.
The insult to injury about the payouts to clients? The county had the nerve to claim that welfare payments have a multiplier effect on the economy.
I could add to this narrative several multi-million-dollar debacles including the county’s furtive attempt to steal the ambulance contract from AMR, which has resulted in a costly lawsuit, or the $250 million boondoggle in the form of the failed waste-to-energy conversion facility, which is also in litigation.
But I think you get the picture as to why our board of supervisors deserve an “F” on managing Santa Barbara County into economic oblivion.
The problem with the county and the city of SB is there is nothing in place to stop this ridiculous growth of expenses except the VOTERS.
Complain all you want, but the change has to come from the voter. And as we’ve seen with the democrats farm team approach, bringing up people through the ranks, building cultural identity and familiarity for years as their team progresses from city counsel member to county supervisor, then state wide positions, it may be a bridge too far!
For years we’ve all been talking about the unsustainable cost structures at the state, county and city level, but more and more fees come into play, more wage growth, more oversight, and the really nasty method of public input and consensus which puts the stamp of approval on the whole thing. Underlying all of this is the notion that affordability, and fairness can be provided to the less fortunate by raising fees on all others.
The key to changing this game: throw the bums out! Organize opposition to force the Democrat farm team to fail. Publish, publish, publish! Government and education employees may be only 3.5% of the states population, but they’re a key voting bloc: colas, retirement benefits vested in 6-8 years time in the job, compliance with their bosses (fealty) provides longevity assuring retirement benefits, guaranteed vacation and sick leave mentors and more. Visit transparentcalifornia.com to see the real cost of all these employees.
We have found the enemy and he is us- Pogo.
I had the pleasure of interacting with the previous director of public health Van Do-Reynoso. What a useless pile of excrement. If you have ever had the pleasure of hearing her speak you probably needed a barf bag. Spewing the racial disparity in health care outcomes, the health emergency due to climate change and the need for a Latinx and Indigenous Migrant COVID-19 Task Force she seems to hit all of the buzz words that Democrat voters like to hear. Beyond the progressive buzz word fluff, I was unable to extract any useful health care data relative to covid acquired immunity, and I beat my head against the wall trying. It was when school teachers were being threatened with termination if refusing to get the covid shit shot. A then just released study of public health data in Israel found that natural immunity from a previous infection was far superior to any benefit afforded by the injection. So I was arguing that as a minimum, teachers who had already recovered from covid need not get the shot. I asked for data on people who had tested positive, recovered and tested positive again. This would repeat what was done in Israel and confirm that many teachers would not benefit from the shot. Van Do-Do would not release the data no matter how many times I asked or how I framed the request. She like many of our government employees are not chosen for competence and serve to protect the government, their position and their ideology ultimately serving themselves rather than their constituents.