Riverside County Supervisors Adopt $10B Budget For 2025-26 Fiscal Year

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors this week adopted a $10 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1, as previously approved. The budget is the county’s first deficit budget in four years.

“As with every budget, and this board knows this all too well, the moment that we adopt this final budget today, we start changing that budget the very next board meeting,” County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen said at the June 24 meeting. “Every time we have an agenda, we have items on there that are an adjustment to that budget.”

Included in the budget were $2.8 billion in spending for health and hospital services, $2.3 billion in spending for public safety, $2 billion for human services, $1.2 billion for public works and community services, $875 million for internal services and $765 million for finance and government services.

Also included in the approved budget was $24.2 million in a contingency fund, which is reserved for emergency board action; $12.5 million for the Unincorporated Communities Initiative, which the supervisors spend throughout the year; and an additional $17.2 million that included:

• $1.8 million to increase staffing in the Fire Marshal’s Office of the Fire Department;
• $1.4 million to the District Attorney’s Office to expand victim services and attorney support;
• $332,000 to the Emergency Management Department for new positions focused on alert warnings and access and functional needs planning;
• $1.7 million to the Public Defender’s Office for additional attorney positions and expert witnesses;
• $4.8 million to the Department of Animal Services to increase staff supporting life-saving operations, such as foster care, intake, rescue and adoptions;
• $5 million to Housing and Workforce Solutions to expand affordable housing efforts; and
• $1 million to the nonprofit organization Lift to Rise to address the region’s high cost of housing.

The board also agreed to fund additional department requests through “just-in-time funding,” which allows the county to cover these approved costs as they arise throughout the fiscal year instead of at the time of the budget’s adoption.

However, for those who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, the approved budget failed to address important community concerns.

“I understand the need for public safety, no question about it, but there were a bunch of listening sessions that were held about what the priorities of the community were,” Rabbi Suzanne Singer said, noting that many people wanted increased investment in community-based programs that she felt were not included in the approved budget. “So, it’s very disappointing that money was increased for the sheriff’s budget, and these things were not.”

Singer’s concerns were echoed by other speakers, including Rev. Jane Quandt, Vonya Quarles, Nathan Kempe and Luis Nolasco, senior community engagement and policy advocate at the ACLU of Southern California.

“I applaud this board for sending out surveys to community members prior to finalizing your budget, but it feels performative,” Quarles said. “I say that because what I heard in the tele-town halls that I attended were that people wanted to see the discretionary budget go to elder care, youth services, infrastructure like potholes, education, economic development…and none of that has been addressed with this budget.”

Others, like Roy Bleckert and Steve Ginn, felt that the county’s budget didn’t give enough to public safety, specifically the sheriff’s department.

“The service level of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department will be cut with the budget as proposed,” Bleckert said, noting that the budget allocation was about $70 million short of what the department said it needed to stay flat. “This budget clearly shows this is not a priority of this Board of Supervisors.”

Van Wagenen pushed back on assertions made by both camps, pointing to the increased funding for victim services, the public defender’s office, affordable housing, fire and emergency services as well as the sheriff’s department through discretionary and Prop 172 funds as well as the county’s use of “just-in-time funding” to ensure the continuance of vital services and programs even during an economically uncertain time.

“The reality is, this budget is not just a reflection of what the community needs and wants or some segments of what the community needs and wants, but it’s a realization of our obligation to meet the needs of all our constituents, countywide,” he said.

In addition to funds already included in the budget, Van Wagenen said that virtually every county department was actively seeking out grants to bring in additional revenue to the county to fund vital programs.

“We are tragically underfunded by the state of California,” Van Wagenen said. “We are, on a per capita basis, funded by the state at roughly 56 out of 58 counties.”

Pointing to the successes of Dr. Matthew Chang, director of Riverside University Health System-Behavioral Health, Van Wagenen said the county has been able to leverage state grants to build new facilities.

“The reality is we’ve had great success to the point where the state continues to point to us as a leader in this space,” he said. “The state continues to award us new dollars, and when other counties are unable to spend their facility dollars, the state calls us and asks if we have other projects.”

And while these monies are not included in adopted budgets, since they have not yet been received by the county, they will be added in through future board action.

“When additional funding comes in, we adjust the budget up to accomplish or to accommodate those increases,” he said.

The full budget, as well as additional information about the budgeting process, can be found here on the county’s website.

In other board action: The Board of Supervisors approved an additional $10.1 million for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office for the 2024-25 fiscal year to cover increased salary and benefit obligations as a result of labor negotiations.