The OC Budget & Finance Office wants your feedback! Yay!
OK, I understand your lack of enthusiasm, but remember that the County of Orange has a current budget of 10.8 billion dollars. And while the County is constantly reminding us that most of its spending is mandated, it does have a “discretionary funding source” (to quote the county) of about 1.3 billion dollars, known as General Purpose Revenue (GPR), or Net County Cost (NCC).
Although the GPR is described by the County itself as being discretionary, the County takes great pains to convince the public that nearly 90% of this is also mandated spending, implying that the Board of Supervisors has no choice about how that money is spent. And in some respects, they are correct, such as when the County receives a state or federal grant that requires matching funds from the County.
It is also true that most services funded by the County are mandated. For example, the County is required to have a Sheriff and a District Attorney and it has to administer elections. But the laws that mandate these services do not mandate how much the County has to spend on them. They don’t mandate specific staffing levels, salaries, types of equipment, or number of jail cells.
Nowhere does it say that the County MUST spend $112 of GPR per resident on carceral services (Sheriff, DA, jails, etc.) while spending only 53 CENTS per resident on housing.
Nowhere does it say that the County MUST spend $14 million to buy a second helicopter for the Sheriff.
Nowhere does it say that the County MUST honor the Sheriff’s request for an additional $62 million just to cover overtime.
But if OC residents want the Board of Supervisors to vote for different budget priorities, we have to let them know what those are. The survey recently launched by the OC Budget & Finance Office would seem to be a great place to start, so let’s see how it measures up.
The first 2 questions ask for our zip code and age. So far, so good.
Next, we are asked to sort 4 broad program areas in order of importance to us: Community Services, General Government Services, Infrastructure & Environmental Resources, and Public Protection. Each of these is so broad as to contain at least one service that would be considered essential by nearly anyone taking the survey, which seems likely to produce results so evenly distributed as to make them meaningless. And call me cynical, but if every person taking this survey were to rank Public Protection last, does anyone really believe that would cause the Supervisors to turn down the Sheriff’s Department request for $62 million in overtime?
The fourth question lists 17 of the County’s “roles and responsibilities” (each described in 2-3 words) and asks us to choose the 3 that we consider most important. (Does the County really expect anyone to list Tax Collection or Landfill Operations in their top 3? Just asking.) My hope is that everyone will list Housing Assistance in their top 3. One other choice caught my eye: Public Safety & Defense. I am not sure what role the County thinks it should have in “defense” but my fear is that a high ranking for this responsibility (and, after all, isn’t everyone in favor of Public Safety?) will be used to justify further militarization of the Sheriff’s Department. I would much prefer that $14 million be spent on low-income housing or rental assistance than on a helicopter. Public safety is great, but leave the defense to the feds.
The next section of the survey asks us to rate, on a scale of 0-10, the importance of each of 6 “Key Initiatives.” Each initiative is described in one sentence. We are given no information about how the initiatives’ goals will be implemented, how progress will be monitored, or how they have worked so far. Yes, one can find many more words about each initiative on the County website, but little of substance and even less of actual data that could be used to measure performance. As a result, the vast majority of responses will be based on a single sentence. And of course, each initiative, on the face of it, would be hard to vote against. (Personally, I could not rate the OC Housing Initiative, which “addresses the need for permanent and supportive affordable housing for those experiencing homelessness,” any less than a 10, even though the County has yet to reach its 2018 goal of 2700 units of permanent supportive housing.) If I were a Supervisor, I would hope that every initiative would get a high rating, because that would mean that virtually any budget decision would be supported by public opinion.
The final section is titled “Overall Feedback.” We are first asked to rate “how the County is doing with it’s [sic] budgeting” on a scale of 1-5 stars. This is clearly the product of cutting-edge, AI-turbocharged survey research. I wonder how long it took them to decide on the shape of the stars? And couldn’t this have been done better on Yelp?
The last 2 questions are “What do you think the County is doing well?” and “How do you think the County can improve?” Each answer is limited to 800 characters, or roughly 6 sentences, so the County is unlikely to glean any useful insights from the responses. The Supervisors, however, should be able to cherry-pick responses to support anything they do. (Which begs the question: Will all of the responses to every question be made available publicly?)
Finally, once all the required questions have been answered, and the Submit button has been clicked, we are taken to a page with a sentence informing us that our response was submitted, below which is a link titled “Submit another response.” And indeed, when one clicks on that link, a new survey form appears! Is the Budget & Finance Office not concerned about voter fraud in this survey? Or is this a feature rather than a bug?
I am tempted to conclude that the entire point of the survey is to give the Supervisors talking points to support the status quo.
Thus, while I urge everyone to take the survey, I don’t think anyone should expect the results to change the hearts and minds of the Board of Supervisors. The only way we can do that is at the ballot box.
Thomas Fielder has been a volunteer with Housing is a Human Right Orange County since 2018. He has lived in Orange County since 1980.
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Voice of OC is interested in hearing different perspectives and voices. If you want to weigh in on this issue or others please email opinions@voiceofoc.org.
