What's at stake?
As many as 40,000 people who rely on CalFresh food benefits and over half of the county's residents who rely on Medi-Cal could be impacted by the Big, Beautiful Bill.
With thousands of residents bracing for massive cuts to food and health care access, Fresno County leaders on Thursday held the first of three town hall-style meetings designed to shed light on the county’s financial struggles that have amounted to a $300 million projected deficit.
“Most don’t understand how the county is the last line of defense for so many things, and so if the county is not able to do that, that’s when people are upset,” said Chief Administrative Officer Paul Nerland. “The pressures that we’re facing are immense.”
About a quarter of a million Fresno County residents receive CalFresh benefits, and the county estimates that around 40,000 people will be impacted by new work eligibility requirements. And a little over half of county residents rely on Medi-Cal, which will also have new requirements for residents to stay on.
But only 20 people arrived at the Clovis Transit Center early Thursday afternoon for the county’s town hall. Most were county officials or local media.
Fresno County spokesperson Sonja Dosti told Fresnoland that she was “surprised” to see the low turnout given the county’s past successes with community events.
The event had been publicized through the county’s social channels for a few weeks, she said, and they had sent alerts to media and local community-based organizations — a list that’s thousands of groups long — to get the word out.
She said past informational meetings like those for county redistricting and for information on how the county was looking to spend federal COVID-19 relief funding had substantially more outreach.
Budget hearings won’t begin until September, and the county will have two more meetings this month, both held virtually, to continue to try and garner public input on the budget process. (Register here for the virtual meeting on June 24 at 12:00 p.m. and register here for the meeting on June 25 at 5:30 p.m.)
How’d we get here?
President Donald Trump signed the “Big Beautiful Bill” on July 4 last year. The budget policy largely funded tax cuts by cutting spending on social services, forcing local governments to come up with the money or make cuts.
The first wave of effects from the Big Beautiful Bill, or H.R. 1, are being felt this year across the country. In Fresno County, that looks like a near $300 million budget deficit, affecting mostly supportive services like SNAP and Medi-Cal.
People who rely on on SNAP, or CalFresh, should have received a letter from June 1 indicating changes in eligibility and new mandatory work requirements.
County officials earlier this week still said that they’d be presenting a balanced budget in September during the county’s budget hearings.
But it’s been years since the stakes have been this high for the county’s budget architects. Even during COVID-19, the federal government came in to support local governments with American Rescue Plan Act funding.
A coalition of counties asked the California legislature for help during the most recent state budget plan. It “didn’t do much,” Nerland said.
The state legislature financial lifelines for counties includes a proposal for an emergency fund for indigent care that would provide over the course of two years $250 million for the state’s 58 counties. But Fresno County is looking at potentially being on the hook for as much as $240 million in indigent care just for this year.
How can residents participate, and what’s this talk about a new tax?
Two more budget town halls will be held this month, at noon on June 24 and at 5:30 p.m. on June 25, and they’ll both be virtual.
There is also an online survey, provided in English and Spanish, for residents to help the county understand what Fresno’s constituency of over one million wants to see prioritized in the next budget.
Dosti said a similar survey was shared during the county’s informational meetings on ARPA spending. Those surveys got about 800 respondents, she said, and the county is hoping for similar results this go around.
“Really it’s people who want to be more educated about what’s going on in your community,” Nerland said, “and that really should be everybody.”
Dosti added that she’d like to see the county’s voters show up to the town halls, especially with the board’s upcoming vote to decide whether they want to add a new general tax on the ballot this November.
“I think when people hear the word tax, it’s immediately a ‘no,’” Dosti said.
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors will be asked later this month to approve a Transient Occupancy Tax on the November ballot. First discussed by the board in February, the measure will impose a fee on people sleeping in hotels and similar short-term housing in Fresno’s unincorporated areas.
In short, it would be a general tax that’s largely paid for by non-Fresno County residents. Fresno County is one of the last three counties in California that hasn’t approved a TOT tax, yet.
The tax still needs to be approved by the board following an initial approval at a meeting last month. The second vote is expected to come at their June 30 meeting.
The tax could create about $4.5 million in essentially found money for the county, but hardly a drop in the bucket to cover a $300 million deficit.
Still, board approval is no guarantee that voters would accept such a measure.
During this week’s primary elections, residents from the City of Hanford voted to reject a proposed increase on their established Transient Occupancy Tax.
Dosti said these meetings are also serving, in part, as a way to educate the public on the tax.
When asked during the meeting about what the Hanford vote could mean for how Fresno residents would act for an approval, Nerland said he remained hopeful. He said the fact that Fresno’s proposal is for a new tax as opposed to an increase could help win local support.
“But at the end of the day,” Nerland said, “the voters will make that decision, and we’ll be satisfied with whatever they support.”
