San Diego County has long been a model of fiscal discipline, having strong reserves and a proven reserve policy. This has enabled our county to weather economic storms and natural disasters that have left other counties scrambling.
Unfortunately, we currently face a $138.5 million structural deficit — projected to more than double to over $300 million next year. And late on Friday, a last minute and reckless proposal to gut the county’s safety net was just added to the Tuesday Board of Supervisors agenda.
The board must reject this dangerous plan and protect a reserve policy that has been time-tested and proven.
Last week, the county’s chief administrative officer released a recommended budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year that totaled $8.62 billion. It is important to highlight that this budget does not use any of the county’s reserves to be balanced.
However, the late-docketed proposal from my colleagues threatens to weaken our financial safeguards by raiding the county’s reserves. This approach would lead our county down a dangerous path of unsustainable spending while refusing to solve our fundamental budgetary issues.
Equally troubling in this discussion is the process. This sweeping change was late-docketed, which means that residents and other stakeholders, who may live hours away from downtown San Diego, have only one and a half business days to reorganize their schedules to show up in-person and scrutinize a policy shift with massive implications.
Transparency is the bedrock of public trust. County residents deserve ample notice to weigh in on decisions that could reshape our fiscal future. This is something my colleagues indicated they agreed with by supporting my proposal at our last meeting to give longer notice of meeting agenda items.
A county’s reserves are its financial safety net. They are a pool of funds set aside to weather unexpected crises, from natural disasters to economic downturns — or even a global pandemic. Just like a family has an emergency fund should something go wrong, our county’s reserves ensure that we can maintain essential services to our residents, especially the more than 600,000 who live in our unincorporated communities and rely 100% on the county. Unlike the federal government, San Diego County can’t just print more money or run a continuous deficit.
Just five short years ago, we faced a global pandemic that nobody had expected. When COVID-19 struck, San Diego County’s strong reserves kept us afloat and were there when we needed them most. Unlike other counties with razor-thin reserves, we didn’t face crippling service cuts or layoffs, even when federal reimbursements were uncertain.
The county was able to use more than $200 million in its reserves to not only sustain services but to help those who were struggling with the wide-ranging impacts of the pandemic. The reserves weren’t just a number in a bank account; they provided the safety net we needed during an unprecedented time.
Some of my colleagues point out that there is uncertainty from the federal government right now. But our county has faced uncertainty from both the state and federal government when it comes to programming budgets for decades. Rather than taking every proposal or news clip as an approved policy or guessing what might happen next, let’s carefully monitor and evaluate changes as they become clearer. The board can always adjust our budget at any time with four votes.
Strong reserves protect everyone, especially unincorporated communities that rely solely on county services during good and bad economic times and unexpected disasters like wildfires. We cannot risk destabilizing the safety net we’ve built. We don’t need to raid our safety net because our reserve policy has proven its worth during one of the most challenging moments in recent history.
The board and county residents should reject this proposal on Tuesday and instead support preserving our time-tested reserve policy. Fiscal responsibility and transparency aren’t negotiable.
Supervisor Joel Anderson has represented District 2 on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors since 2020. The district in East County includes more than 600,000 residents with three cities, parts of the city of San Diego, 39 unincorporated communities, and 10 tribal governments.
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