Throughout all the public budget briefings, hearings and town halls last month detailing the latest $10 billion spending plan for Orange County residents, nobody ever mentioned – much less debated – spiking politicians’ pay. 

[Read: Orange County Supervisors Now Make More Than California’s Governor]

Especially not the 25% pay spike ultimately adopted by county supervisors for themselves on a 4-1 vote (with Katrina Foley quietly dissenting) as they approved the FY 25-26 budget on June 24, pushing their salaries over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s.

[Read: Santana: Who Spearheaded OC Supervisors’ Pay Hike?]

That glaring omission sums up the stale nature of public budget deliberations across our region – a process required by state law with the idea of enabling residents to self govern but rarely hosted  in a way that effectively puts residents in the driver’s seat. 

The salary spike has raised eyebrows across the political spectrum – with county workers livid, union leaders lambasting the decision, two supervisors donating their raises to charity and one state legislator thinking about introducing legislation that would prohibit such surprise spikes.

“I was disconcerted that the majority of Supervisors thought it fiscally prudent to increase their salaries by 25%, all while cutting county programs due to a budget shortfall,” said State Assemblyman Avelino Valencia in a text response to my questions, adding “like with redistricting, an independent commission should set the salaries in order to remove any conflict of interest.”

Valencia added: “I’m exploring legislation that would preclude local electeds from giving themselves salary increases if their respective jurisdictions are experiencing budget shortfalls or fiscal downturns.” 

Yet a real budget discussion would have made the salary spike much tougher. 

Much like a host of city councils across Orange County, county supervisors fail to take advantage of the opportunity to take the public on a deep dive into the use of taxes to manage a host of very real and local quality-of-life challenges and opportunities facing local residents. 

[Read: Orange County Cities Scramble to Patch Budget Gaps]

Instead, what we get every year in June is an unveiling of what officials have already decided to do, what I call the sweet science of sleepwalking through local government.

That’s not real engagement. 

And it doesn’t really put the public in charge. 

The reality is that there’s very little wiggle room during public hearings in June for any member of the public to challenge public budget priorities. 

“By the time it’s before us for a public hearing, decisions are baked in,” said Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento in response to my questions about the lack of real public budget deliberations. 

Sarmiento told me he’s gotten great feedback from residents in recent years as he’s increasingly unveiled a series of nighttime town halls in his district where residents can interact with budget priorities and county officials up close. 

“We’ve had robust attendance,” Sarmiento told me last month just before one of the final sessions in Orange. 

“People have appreciated us going into the field,” he said, pointing out that budget sessions after work hours and at local community centers get better turn out than asking residents to venture to city hall or the county hall of administration, places that can be “intimidating,” Sarmiento added. 

Virtually all county budget meetings – like their regular meetings – take place while taxpayers are working. 

Sarmiento described new County CEO Michelle Aguirre as “supportive” of the initiative, something Aguirre separately noted during her budget introduction, telling supervisors that while it was her 24th public budget presentation, “there’s always room for improvement” in terms of public engagement. 

“I hope we’ve started a trend,” Sarmiento said, “creating opportunities for the public to participate shouldn’t be scary, it should be part of our accepted process.”

What’s In This Year’s Budget?

This year’s $10.8 billion county budget – more than a $1 billion increase from the last year – includes at least $300 million earmarked for claims arising from the Airport Fire earlier this year – a process that remains ongoing.

It’s a process that got no real discussion during the budget. 

Much like the sustained property tax disadvantage facing County of Orange residents as they get one of the weakest returns on their property tax sent to Sacramento. Just about every county gets to keep more of their property tax money than OC residents do.

Again, while county budget officials mention the property tax woes, there was virtually no discussion on how it came to be or what plans are to have our army of state legislators or lobbyists paid for by local taxpayers address this systemic gap. 

While this year’s budget doesn’t include any job cut backs, it does anticipate a series of cuts from federal and state programs.

And while union leaders publicly praised supervisors for avoiding job cutbacks they also warn that vacancies are much higher in the field than the budget shows – a real threat to workers and the public that could have prompted much more discussion, debate and perhaps, action. 

Going Public

This year’s tight budget all but guarantees tough future choices and discussions. 

And that’s something that county leaders should be getting out in front of – like taking a deep dive at all discretionary spending, like overtime in key departments like the Sheriff’s department. 

Now, we all understand when there are fires, protests or community challenges like mass shootings, those trigger overtime for Sheriff deputies. 

But there’s virtually no discussion, much less accountability about where those expenses are being generated or the health impacts of forcing our law enforcement officers to work so much overtime. 

This year, all we heard in the limited press briefing that reporters got – 40 minutes for $10.8 billion in spending – was that overtime spending would require an extra $62 million in public monies to cover the bill. 

Name me a business that would tell its shareholders that expenses went up by $62 million without any real discussion. 

I do remember Supervisor Janet Nguyen briefly touching on overtime spending but cutting off her public inquiry after receiving a standard non-answer from county technocrats. 

In addition, there was zero discussion about what it means for local residents to sustain cuts in federal and state spending – cuts that could deepen as the year progresses. 

Most importantly, there was zero discussion about the sustained pattern of approving law enforcement salary raises throughout the past decade without any sort of similar increase in revenues – either from standard or special taxes like the Proposition 172 sales tax that funds law enforcement but this year lagged, according to officials. 

Truth in Budgeting

While old-school fiscal conservatives always talk about the advantages of zero-based budgeting (meaning that every department starts at zero every year and must defend its budget from scratch), it’s never been implemented in Orange County – even when Republicans largely controlled a majority of the seats. 

That kind of approach to budgets might prompt better discussions – forcing department heads to come up to the public podium or community centers and really explain how they are spending public monies.

I am old enough to remember when county budget deliberations took almost a week, with much more debate and analysis on trends and potential solutions. 

This week, I even got a no-comment from the OC GOP when I asked whether pay raises for county supervisors made sense. 

Real budgeting requires debate, discussion. 

And Orange County isn’t getting it. 

Now, whenever you ask about the lame nature of the budget, technocrats will tell you to wait for the strategic planning process, which usually happens in the fall. 

And when you show up to that, they’ll point you to the budget. 

Or to the quarterly budget updates. 

The key for residents – if they are to have any chance at real self-government or prompting solutions – is to demand real discussions out of these mandated disclosures. 

As opposed to the quick and thin briefings currently being provided.

That kind of engagement just tells you how line items – and lost opportunities – all add up.