County rolls out expanded children's-budget data pilot to map programs, funding and populations served

The Office of Budget and Analysis and the Office of Children and Families Policy presented an expanded "children's budget" pilot to gather more detailed program-level information across county departments, the committee heard Friday.

The pilot, leaders said, asks departments to supply data not previously included in the children's-budget package: program type and focus area, language access, age groups served, clients with disabilities, race/ethnicity and priority-population categories, contractor names and funding sources. Bianca Jones of the Office of Budget and Analysis told the committee the county currently spends about $1.29 billion on children, youth and family programs, with roughly $1.03 billion coming from federal, state or other non‑general‑fund sources.

Officials said the new data will produce an internal, searchable resource for county planners and policymakers to identify funding gaps, overlaps and opportunities to better align programs with board priorities. Sarah Duffy, deputy director of the Social Services Agency and acting chief children's officer, said the pilot is intended to reveal program focus (for example behavioral health, immigrant services, leadership development) and priority populations (for example LGBTQIA+, people experiencing housing instability) so the county can be more strategic in future budgets.

Why it matters: County leaders said the work is designed to support priority‑setting and to help county departments braid state and federal revenue streams, including opportunities tied to medical billing and CalAIM where appropriate. Committee members pressed staff to use the pilot findings to locate overlapping contracts that could be merged and to identify opportunities to shift program placement to departments that can draw down additional medical revenue.

How the pilot will work: Officials said the pilot began with the Division of Equity and Social Justice and the Social Services Agency, and departments will be asked to provide full program inventories during this year's budget instructions. The county will build summary dashboards for meetings scheduled in March; departments will incorporate the additional fields into the FY2025–26 children's‑budget process in the spring.

Committee action and follow-up: Supervisor Arenas moved that the committee receive the presentation and return with a report to CSFC in March that assembles the pilot findings and summarizes how the department-level contract review work intersects with the children's-budget pilot. The motion carried. Staff said they will demo a dashboard at the March FGOC meeting and will present countywide data once collection is complete.

Ending note: Presenters said the pilot is intended to produce more transparent, program‑level data to help the county decide where to target scarce general‑fund dollars and where to maximize draw‑down of external funds.