Board of Supervisor’s Discretionary Fund

In the County budget, each Supervisor is allotted a discretionary fund that they can access for particular community needs in their district or county-wide.

I have always supported community benefit funding because who else knows their district better than the elected supervisor who is accountable to his or her constituents. In my case, as the only supervisor who has served on a City Council, I also understand the City’s budget issues. I am very happy to do what I can to help the City when they need it, as well as the 6 precincts in the 5th District that are outside the City’s incorporated area.

However the economic times we are experiencing call for a different way of doing business, even for community benefit funding.

It seemed to me that when each Supervisor sponsors a grant, we should put it on the consent calendar of the Board of Supervisor’s agenda to be voted on by the full Board each month, prior to funds being allocated. I proposed this to the Board President, Hal Brown, and he supported the idea and asked that I bring this up at a Board meeting during Supervisor Matters. When I did, the President said that if there were no objections, he would direct staff to do this. No other supervisor objected.

The change in policy removes automatic administrative approval and instead any requested items are placed on the consent calendar once a month to be voted on by the Board. To clarify, this new process requires the funds to be approved by the Board prior to being allocated. This new process will begin July 1, 2009 (the beginning of the new fiscal year).

I believe this process provides more transparency and also lets the community see how the Board, and particularly their Supervisor, is allocating this spending in these stressful times. With this new process, any supervisor could ask that an item be removed from the consent agenda and question or even vote against.

This change in procedure wouldn’t be possible if the Board members didn’t have respect and appreciation for each other. They are a pleasure to work with.

I invite you to read a recent opinion-editorial about this topic written by Paul Mamalakis in the Novato Advance:
http://www.novatoadvance.com/articles/2009/06/03/opinion/guest_editorial/doc4a26ed765843c674784063.txt