San Benito supervisors rescind layoff notices, form budget review team after public outcry

The San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to rescind layoff notices the county sent to employees and approved creating a budget management team to dig into contested numbers in the draft 2025-26 budget.

The action came after more than two hours of public comment and department testimony at a special meeting where county department heads, union representatives and residents said they had received little advance notice of proposed layoffs and lacked the detailed financial data needed to evaluate the draft budget.

Why this matters: County leaders and department heads said the draft budget contains unexplained increases and inconsistent baseline figures that risked producing large staffing cuts if the board adopted the document without detailed review. Department heads, labor leaders and the sheriff told supervisors the layoff notices issued the previous week caused alarm and appeared premature given unresolved questions about revenue, expenditures and accounting entries.

Board action and next steps - Rescind layoff notices: The board adopted a motion to rescind the proposed layoff notices and to readvertise the public hearing on the budget for June 9 (vote recorded as 5–0). - Form budget management team: The board authorized an ad hoc budget management team composed of county staff and selected advisors to provide line-item access and analysis and report back to the board. The team was directed to include the assessor, auditor and budget office staff, the county administrative office and other budget advisers named by the board; the motion passed on a 3–2 vote.

Public and staff concerns Multiple department heads and union representatives described receiving layoff notices over the prior weekend with little opportunity to review supporting data. Rena Cardenas, president of SEIU Local (county employees' union), urged supervisors to avoid actions that would have “devastating impacts” on staffing and asked for transparent, collaborative review of alternatives to layoffs.

Several department heads said they had not been given written notice or the opportunity to provide input before lists of proposed cuts were circulated. The sheriff testified that his department had not been consulted and that key positions listed for layoff included specialized jobs whose absence would jeopardize operations.

Board and staff discussion Supervisors and staff described several specific problems they want the review team to investigate: rapidly rising projected expenditures in certain object codes, large jumps in service/consultant expenses, and inconsistent baseline figures for fiscal years used in projections. County staff said the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system (the county's financial system) can produce the needed transaction-level data but that extracting and presenting it in a usable format will require coordinated effort.

Board members asked for: access to transaction-level data where appropriate, a line-item comparison across several fiscal years, rollovers and committed contract amounts, and a clear reconciliation of how the draft 2025-26 figures differ from actuals in recent years.

Legal and process questions County counsel and the district attorney advised that discussions about labor impacts may require closed-session labor negotiations at appropriate points, but the board must take public action on layoff notices. Several speakers asked whether the notices that went out met the county’s layoff-policy notice requirements; the district attorney recommended rescinding the notices and reissuing them once the board had clarified policy and followed proper notice procedures.

What the review team will do (direction given by board) - Provide supervisors and the public more granular, line-level budget data where legally and procedurally permissible. - Review major increases in consultant/other charges and identify anomalies. - Produce reconciliations of actuals for prior fiscal years versus the draft 2025-26 budget. - Report back to the board and support preparation for the public hearing scheduled for June 9.

Community response and next steps Speakers from labor, department leadership and community organizations urged urgency but also deliberation, saying the board should not finalize layoffs until the numbers are reconciled and alternatives considered. The board set a schedule for the budget team to begin working immediately and to present findings in advance of the rescheduled public hearing.

The board’s motions and the public testimony leave two clear outcomes: layoff notices have been withdrawn pending further analysis, and the board has committed staff resources to a targeted review intended to produce transparent reconciliations before any final budget adoption.