Santa Barbara County Tax Collector Says General Services Being Severely Underfunded

Santa Barbara County Tax Collector-Treasurer Harry E. Hagen, in his own words, generally tries to make his presentations positive and optimistic. But in a year when his department is mired in its toughest budget situation since the Great Recession, Hagen took a different course at an April 11 meeting with the Board of Supervisors. “This time, I’m going to have to do things a little differently,” he told the board. “I appreciate each and every one of you, so I think you can handle what I’m about to tell you.” 

Throughout the hearing, Hagen insisted that the General Government and Support Services department was severely underfunded by the county, with a structural budget deficit forcing the department to make difficult choices. In the last year, General Government and Support Services had to defund almost 10 percent of its staff in Veterans’ Services, Treasury Tax, Information Technology, and Public Administration offices. Due to the shortage of positions, many people in the department are working two jobs at the same time.

According to Hagen, there are multiple problems preventing the department from receiving necessary funding. Chief among them is that whenever the department has a negotiated, approved increase in salaries and benefits, they only receive about half of the increase in their General Fund Contribution (GFC); the department itself is expected to make up the difference with other revenue sources, such as cannabis tax collection, a concept that Hagen compared to “death by a thousand cuts.” The manner of collecting from these revenue sources cannot be adjusted based on departmental needs, as changes proposed by any department must go through a court process.