Calaveras County CEO recommends budget with $2.7 million gap; board directs changes to TOT, CIP and staffing reviews

Calaveras County administrative staff on Tuesday presented a recommended fiscal year 2025–26 budget that still showed a structural shortfall and prompted the Board of Supervisors to give targeted direction on one-time fund use, transient-occupancy-tax distributions and several capital and staffing questions.

The County Administrative Office’s recommended budget counts a $4.66 million structural deficit after department reductions, and proposes closing most of the gap with one-time sources: $1,545,000 from the county’s PARS investment account and a proposed $500,000 transfer from transient-occupancy-tax (TOT) contingencies. That approach reduces the immediate shortfall to about $2.7 million, the administrator said, and leaves the county with an estimated $4.5 million in ending general-fund equity carried into the new fiscal year.

Why it matters: the general fund remains tight. Admin used a conservative forecasting approach and asked the board to accept a working recommended budget to carry the county through July until public hearings and final adoption in September. The budget keeps general-fund contingency at roughly $1.8 million (about 2% by policy) and a reserve of $5.7 million (about 8% by policy), but staff warned that relying on one-time transfers and declining revenues would make it harder to preserve capital maintenance and future borrowing capacity.

Most-important facts - Total county-wide revenue in the recommended budget is presented at about…