Counties are the first to fall

‘Painful, emotional’ county government restructuring to begin next week 

Public meetings will begin next week to restructure Tuolumne County’s government organization from the ground up, a process that County Administrator Tracie Riggs says is going to be “very emotional, very difficult and very painful.”
Riggs said in an interview with The Union Democrat on Tuesday that “everything is on the table” when the county Board of Supervisors holds back-to-back special meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to start the process in an open, public setting.
“I’m passionate about living within our means, making it transparent, and having our community involved in that,” she said. “It’s important.”
The board agreed to go through the process of restructuring when they approved a stopgap budget in June that covered a three-month period from the start of the current fiscal year on July 1 through Sept. 30.
Riggs and other top officials recommended the reorganization after being unable to close a $3.7 million shortfall in the $78 million General Fund, which is the county’s largest operations budget.
Similarly sized shortfalls in the past have been covered largely with money budgeted but not spent during the previous fiscal year. However, that’s no longer an option as county departments have become more precise with the amount of funding they request.
Most of the potential cutbacks to services and staffing will be in departments funded directly by the General Fund, which include the sheriff, district attorney, probation, libraries, recreation, veterans services, and the Community Resources Agency that oversees planning and development, code enforcement, and environmental health.

Counties are too corrupt to survive the pension tsunami.