Monterey County Halts Hiring, Bracing for Tough Financial Times

Tough financial times may be on the horizon for Monterey County government, and officials are in the midst of the sort of belt-tightening they hope will avert staff layoffs down the road.

The county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Oct. 15 to approve a hiring freeze on any positions funded through the General Fund — which is around 3,600 full-time employees.

The county faces a projected $20 million deficit in FY 2025 driven by “dwindling state and federal one-time and grant resources,” increased labor costs and more, staff wrote in a letter to the board.

“This is a really challenging spot to find ourselves in,” Supervisor Wendy Root Askew said.

While the supervisors and Assistant County Administrative Officer Ezequiel Vega acknowledged that some exceptions would need to be made based on department priorities and missions, those critical exemptions won’t be ironed out until next month.

Vega said the test of whether a position is critical to county operations will be determined — at least partially — by whether it is funded through discretionary General Fund revenues.

“Even though the budget was balanced when this budget was adopted, we have identified some cost increases that will impact the budget for the current year,” Vega said.

The potential impacts to the county’s Information Technology Department (ITD) remain an open question for the time being, but the freeze is likely to have some effect on its future staffing plans. Officials were unavailable to comment on the situation by press time Thursday.

According to the county’s finance dashboard, ITD’s budget is funded largely through the General Fund and capital improvement funding.

The move raises broader questions about what the freeze could mean for existing staff workload across the board. Multiple department heads raised concerns about the decision, including Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto and District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni.

Nieto and deputies said the office staffing is already strained between patrol duties and jail shifts. Pacioni shared similar staffing concerns, noting that her office has as many as a dozen vacant positions and is struggling to keep up with the existing caseload.

In both cases, the offices are advertising multiple vacancies that might be at risk of going unfilled.

Reading between the lines here could present some yet unrealized opportunities for both the county and industry to supplement the limited workforce with technological solutions, assuming the cash for further IT investments can be made.

Officials from the California County Information Services Directors Association (CCISDA) and the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) were also unavailable for comment by press time Thursday.