Day 2 of Budget Hearings Focused on Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency
HHSA faces significant challenges including soaring mandated public service needs and significant staff burnout.
Shasta County’s second day of budget hearings began with a presentation by Health and Human Services Agency Director Laura Burch.
HHSA’s budget makes up almost half of the county’s total spending, although of the more than $300 million that HHSA spends, only about $8 million comes from the county’s general fund. Other funding is primarily provided via federal and state funds. Because much of HHSA’s funding requires county contributions in order to access revenue provided by the federal and state governments, Burch said, implementing a 5% budget cut of general funds at HHSA would also reduce access to state and federal funds.
Burch painted a grim picture of the current and future financial situation of HHSA, saying that downturns in the economy and proposed state budget cuts coincide with an increasing local demand for services, particularly assistance with food, jobs and housing. According to Burch, the demand has risen by 48% since 2017/18. Many of HHSA’s programs are state mandated, but not all of those services are state funded, Burch explained. And even once available state funds have been exhausted, she continued, the state mandate to serve the most vulnerable continues to be the responsibility of the county.
“Our greatest challenges are the high cost of doing business and the increase in community needs,” Burch said. She also explained that state budget cuts in response to the current deficit are likely to significantly impact some HHSA programs, particularly social services.
HHSA operates more than 100 programs with the dedicated help of more than 1,000 staff. Burch’s salary costs will rise over $29 million despite a net reduction of eighty-one currently vacant positions. That’s likely at least in part because lower-level line staff positions with commensurate pay continue to have high vacancy rates, while several new highly-paid top agency positions, including that of assistant agency director and chief financial officer, were recently created.
Burch reported progress in HHSA’s Administration branch where the department “consolidated asset management” and has just onboarded a chief financial officer who will manage high-level financial analysis. HHSA contracts had become backlogged, Burch said, but sixty-three contracts that had been overdue for at least six months were recently cleared with the help of county counsel, Burch said. Continued challenges in the department include ongoing vacancies and staff turnover in key positions, issues with invoicing processes, and backlogged financial audits and reviews in the Housing and Community Action Departments, which were moved under HHSA in April 2023.
Burch told supervisors she’d like to see both the Housing and Community Action Departments moved back out from under her supervision. She suggested making Housing it’s own separate department again, as it was prior to early last year. CEO David Rickert indicated that the county has also had preliminary conversations with the City of Redding about consolidating city and county housing into a single agency. The Board voted unanimously to bring re-organizational options for the Housing Department.
Burch also said she would like to eliminate the County’s Community Action Agency, which manages several hundred thousand dollars in state funds, known as Community Services Block Grants (CSBG). Currently the county is spending more to run that agency than they receive in revenue from the state, Assistant HHSA Director Christy Coleman said. She said those funds could still come to the community if a nonprofit agreed to pick up the state contract. “A nonprofit could likely run the program cheaper,” Coleman said, although she did not explain why. Again, the Board voted unanimously to bring the idea back for consideration.
On Burch’s advice, the Board will also consider reclassifying Eligibility Services Department employees in order to increase pay and improve staff retention. “These are our boots-on-the-ground front-line staff for mandated entitlement (food aid, housing, jobs) services,” Burch said, explaining that the department is “hemorrhaging” workers right now. Department Head Dwayne Green said he often receives 2-3 employee resignations a day. “We are losing many of these talented and technically qualified people to other jobs,” Green said. A brief mention was made of a Grand Jury investigation into the Eligibility Department which has not yet become public. Burch said that report may become public today, June 6.
The Public Health department, which is also under HHSA, is also struggling. Burch said Public Health’s budget units are “all in the red” and “drawing heavily” on funding balances as the department struggles to respond to increasing sexually transmitted infections and rising substance use and overdose issues in the community. While some Public Health programs are mandated, “the majority are grant-funded and not mandatory but beneficial.” Crye challenged her on what metric she uses to determine that Public Health programs are beneficial and asked what measurable outcomes she is tracking. In response Burch said that, for example, while suicide prevention programs are not state-mandated, participation in those programs has risen 269% over recent years, indicating the program is serving an important need. The Public Health Department is also currently working towards becoming re-accredited through the National Public Health Board, Burch said.
Despite the slew of bad news, Supervisor Patrick Jones praised Burch effusively, saying both Burch and supervisors knew this would be the toughest assignment the county has, with over 1,000 employees and the largest single budget to manage.
“I didn’t know it was going to be this hard,” Burch responded, likening the process of taking over management of HHSA as being dropped out of an airplane at 50,000 feet. “I really didn’t know what I didn’t know,” Burch told supervisors. She said her prior professional experience had included governmental management at the departmental level but nothing as extensive as what HHSA requires.
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It is now 2 years since the BOS appointment of an Interim HHSA Director. The rumor is that the BOS majority wanted to gut the HHSA in retaliation for not opposing and willfully not complying with Federal and State Covid mandates. Right, wrong or indifferent. At the BOS chambers the exact statement made by the chair was that the HHSA would be “evaluated” on the criteria of “efficiency” but zero paramaters or metrics were given on what their version of “efficiency” is or was. If the HHSA chose to willfully not follow mandates, the County, HHSA, Public Health, Mental Health & Childrens would be ripe for mega lawsuits for every client who ended up hospitalized, infirm or worse- dead. The potential liability and volume of lawsuits could bankrupt the County in a hot second. So back to the efficiency metrics. In the past 2 years has the HHSA reduced rates of communicable disease, poverty, homelessness, abuse or neglect, or intensive mental health services in the community. Has the amount spent of individual client benefit actually rececived by them increased or decreased? Has the administrative cost increased or decreased. Has the individual client benefit increased in direct proportional ratio as admin costs? Have wait times improved? Have fair hearings been reduced or settled in a more timely manner? What exactly are the BOS measurements for the HHSA’s efficiency evaluation? Or is it more like the rumor of intentional gutting of the agency as politcal retribution?
It is time for the Shasta County Grand Jury to do a full investigation on Laura Burch’s DIRTY business practices and unethical behavior starting at Housing, through Child Support and now HHSA. It would be an enlightening experience for sure.
The voice of the voiceless
I second that !
Will an article about the third day of the budget hearings be posted?
It’s time to cut free stuff for people that don’t contribute to our county. It’s called
Tough Love!.
A person must show promise and action of good works before they will get free subsidy of any kind of help. Again! It’s called tough love.
Forget about California government paying free stuff for Shasta County so we can be owned by big blue cities.
We must separate ourselves from the Democrat Communist Socialist Party of California Big Blue city-controlled governments.
I also wonder about the $6 million being overspent from the previous fiscal year. It wasnt really clarified why that occurred. Was it because HHSA had control of the COC money until recently & had planned on using some of that fund to pay for expenses related to the HHSA Housing department & then later found out or decided they couldnt & merely transferred that cost to the CalWORKs budget due to many of the housing staff having come from that department to handle the CalWORKs homeless assistance program within the housing department?
Previous to the current Admin, the HHSA Director and the individual HHSA Branch Directors monitored, presented and submitted budgets on behalf of the HHSA, managed/monitored contracts/proposed and requested HR items and consulted with County CEO and Board members. I do not recall a time since the formation of the HHSA in which $6 million dollars was spent without having the BOS approved budget authority to do so. The new Admin added an attorney for contracts, Several vice/assistant/deputy and whatever name they want to call for high paid executives to serve the function and purpose of Branch Directors for their respective HHSA program(s). Yet they still have the individual branch directors. Either the top executives are there for protecting Laura from responsibility or they are acting Branch Directors & the County no longer needs HHSA Branch Directors who are now serving as highly compensated program managers and not directors.
You are correct. It never happened under the previous administration. Auditor Controller Nolda Short can verify this.
Nor was it allowed to create a new position, recruit for position, and hire. All within a 14 day period. As has happened under Burch’s administration.
It makes you have to wonder which board members she has dirt on. Or who elses hands are dirty in her business practices.
54.87% is a pretty precise number. Kevin and Laura batted that around a lot in budget hearing day 2, as if it were accurate. Frustrating that nobody corrected them. The actual percentage increase (if there were 113 employees in 2019 and 175 currently) would be 35%. Where did that magical 54.87 number come from? It sure sounds impressive.
Kevin and Laura appear to have purposefully paint a picture of an overstaffed branch in the red. Laura failed to mention the reorganization she did that moved 4 departments, such as WIC, into PH. Did she play Kevin like she played the audience on that one or do they both get credit?
Kevin and Laura can’t math, but they sure can gaslight. I wish it wasn’t so easy for them to paint by numbers.
Bad look that Laura doesn’t trust her Branch Directors to present their own budgets. I suppose it is harder to control the narrative that way. She and Kevin did seem to have nicely choreographed her presentation and his strategically placed questions and comments to paint the picture they did. It seems very plausible if you don’t scratch the surface.
To top that session off, Kelstrom didn’t even know he was talking to the wrong guy when he asked Economic Mobility Director Green to answer a Mental Health question. Way to respect your people. So glad my hard earned tax money is going toward your raise.
For the show we were treated to, how about the Board grant Laura another $10k to spend on business lunches while Kevin hints at how staff should consider helping to cut costs by pitching in with the vacuuming – like he’s apparently willing to do. Maybe he feels like he needs to earn that massive pay increase while he debates whether or not to ensure full time line staff don’t have to get government assistance to keep working hard for the taxpayers.
Government at its finest.
Am I understanding correctly? Housing Dept is going to be disrupted again?!
Can we talk about how they used staff as cheap labor the first time. Had them busting their arses moving and stacking boxes for DAYS. Unreal.
Can we have a conversation on how they now are stuck in a windowless, flourcent lit room with poor air flow that had never previously even had any people in it as it was a file room! But they put new carpet! so it’s all gravy.
What a complete slap in the face to hear your Job is likely in jeopardy on a BOS meeting. Absolutely zero transparency.
The housing authority is down to a skeleton staff. They don’t even have reception. So if your worker is hard to get a hold of its because they are likely playing secretary.
Has anyone ever seen a housing authority inside a child support building? There is no way to even identify them.
Laura and Christy used housing to get ahead and then dumped it on its ass.
There are actual people working to keep the community housed. They are not just pawns in this sick game of monopoly.
We know you read the comments. Do better.
After watching the department heads present this morning, I got a bit depressed.
Common threads:
Every department is filled with excellent people working their ___ off doing excellent work for the citizens and taxpayers of Shasta County.
Every department is working way short-staffed!
Every department has been told to cut at least 5%.
Crye’s big comment? “See, our families are degrading.” Really, Mr. Crye? Is that why the JCK Cartel and 75% of all Republicans want to see Trump, a white nationalist adjudicated rapist criminal, who just got convicted of 34 porn-star / election felonies, facing 54 more felonies elected as president? Really Crye? Wow, what a family role model. Crye, you were invited to Mar-A-Largo. Have you been there yet?
In the meantime, all supervisors got a good raise. (I believe only Mary has declined the raise…) But the real story here is not trump or Govonor Newsom; it’s that Supervisors Crye, Jones, and Kelstorm have spent millions upon millions of hard-earned Taxpayer Dollars, resources, and time to politically attack people they don’t like, like D.A. Bridgett or Cathy Darling Allen, and attack laws and policies they don’t like, while giving sweetheart deal contracts to friends and funders, and pushing an extreme hard-right Anti-Government, Aniti-Election, and Anti-Courts, Anti-Law and Order agenda, and toothless – meaningless propaganda like the “Election Commission and toothless “Resolutions” for their alt-right followers, all to often many universes away from any legal jurisdiction granted the supervisors by law, and too often based on distorted information, unfounded allegations and intentionally false statements commonly called lies. Folks, we’re talking about MILLIONS of taxpayers MONEY!
Supervisor Jones needs to save Shasta County Taxpayers a lot of money and resign, or the board needs to place him on leave until the investigation for criminal activity is completed.
I would like to that the BOS for holding these individual department reports. It seems obvious to me that HHSA was probably pretty dysfunctional when Laura Burch inherited it and now, she has pinpointed some areas that need to be eliminated or restructured. It also seems like our CEO has helped her with the backlog of previously neglected work.
As someone who has been with HHSA for over 15 years, that was not the case. Laura Burch and her lack of knowledge and poor leadership have caused chaos on multiple levels and the decline of the agency. You never saw multimillion dollar budgeting errors under the leadership of Marta or Donnell, and the agency’s administrative branch ran smoothly and effectively under its previous leadership. Even in the middle of Covid, we kept the trains running on time and staff morale up. But with Laura’s arrival and her dishonest management style and blatant cronyism driving out qualified, knowledgeable staff and them replacing them with her unqualified pals, chaos has ensued. She and her three incompetent pals are known throughout the agency as “The Mean Girls.” Not exactly a great leadership example for an agency filled with underpaid staff dedicated to serving the community. The hemorrhaging of experienced staff will continue until Laura and her cronies are replaced.
Yours is a very accurate comment. Even after the devastation of the Carr Fire, then Covid. The departments, while not as fiscally sound with their fund balance as they were before the events. All departments within HHSA were fiscally sufficient. Many long time employees left when they learned Burch was coming in because of her reputation at Housing and at Child Support. Those long term employees who chose to stay found out quickly what she was about. And chose to look elsewhere.
It’s a very sad turn of events for this agency after the likes of Marta McKenzie, Donnell Ewert, Leann Link, Tracy Tedder, Dean True, Melissa Janulewicz, and their staff spent many years building a great culture and fiscally sound agency.
The Voice of the Voiceless
Babs you have got to be joking !?!?!? As a current Emp who has been in HHSA Admin for a long time, I can HONESTLY say that this period of time under Laura Burch has been dysfunctional and toxic. I will even go as far to say Laura and the top 3 Admin plus the managers THEY have highered are down right abusive.
Instead of seaking answers or listing to us fiscal people who have experience they try and twist stuff around and toss us under the buss when it doesn’t go their way.
Babs, please listen to us current employees, we are telling you it is bad here in HHSA. Laura did not inherent a problem, she created it when she came on board and is trying to make everyone believe it happen prior to her. I am telling you it is all be cause of her.
Did Laura Burch actually use the phrase “downturns in the economy”? If so, did she specify what she meant? And how that specifically impacted HHSA services? In most respects, the national economy has been booming. Even the most obvious economic struggles – inflation, and the rise in interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it – is in large part driven by the relentless spending over the past several years by American consumers. On the other hand, certain ways which various governments use to generate revenues have been negatively affected in the same past several years (a major reason for the drop in revenues to the State of California).
It would appear people are seeing it my way. Lol.
Have a nice day, Shasta scout
Oh tell us more Jon!!
So she pushed to bring housing under HHSA a year ago and is already saying she wants to get rid of it?? Maybe we should consider if she and all her friends that she hired to management are the best ones for the job…
Housing was brought into the big, fiscally complex agency of HHSA, under Burch. The NorCal CoC responsibilities were passed off to Redding, but not its over $4 million until early this year. Then we learn that $6 million was somehow overspent, but not reported to her bosses because she didn’t know what to do about it. Now she wants Housing back out of HHSA.
This is one of those things that make you go hmmm.
Yes EXACTLY, plus she CREATED a position for her friend. Guess how much her salary & benefits come to in a year??? And that position is NOT funded…….but she has eliminated HOW MANY POSITIONS from HHSA with quite a few of those positions funded !?!?!?!?!
Do you mean the Real Estate Agent? I wonder if this person has the authority to pursue & initiate expense contracts. I wonder if this person has personally benefited from real estate transactions involving past or present superiors, subordinates, and affiliates of business who contract with the HHSA.
They aren’t. It’s curious though that they brought in a third party fincial forensic auditor to “fix the issues” in housing and months later announce wanting to move it back out of HHSA. I say we call for an investigation and accountable from county leaders who remain quite.
One of the main problems with Laura Burch “The Four” is staff being harassed and demanding staff to do their jobs and jobs of others. Exp. 501 accounts are being done by two people that are not familiar with the ins and outs of that account, this was a one person job. One is being under payed in that position and is unwilling to complain to the union in fear of loosing her job. This is where the supervisor should help but they don’t know what they are doing and apparently in the way accounting works and missing MONEY. Is this the conditions anybody wants to work in hence the departure of very qualified personal, transferring to other departments or seeking other jobs else where even at lower pay and benefits.
The top 4 positions need to be eliminated and replaced with people that know what their jobs are and how to actually do the job.
And the hiring methods need to be taken out of their hands and done by the higher powers!! No more hiring friends and buddies for favors.
One more thing they don’t want anyone working overtime which I understand, so how can people do more than their work load in a 8 hour day?
It’s time for someone to get off the pot and get the job done! But what do we expect this is a MIRROR of the problem the state of California is in……..BAD leadership!!!
Best way for HHSA to save money? Eliminate some of the unnecessary high-paid upper management positions. With the creation of the HHSA CFO position, there is absolutely no reason for an HHSA Assistant Director position to exist, for example. Look to cutting management, not line staff.
Burch states she didn’t know what she didn’t know taking over HHSA. Well that’s fine but then you shouldn’t have git ride off all the Upper Admin Management WHO DID KNOW STUFF.
Look at the high turn over people! Don’t believe it is burn out. I am tell you loud and clear it is because the new regime, Laura herself has hired, are making our work environment TOXIC. They bully, push & picking on employees. It is BAD here. And we feel we have no one to help us. We feel we can not trust anyone and are in fear of retaliation that we have seen happen to other employees who have been run out of the department.
Exactly. They tell employees to file whistleblower reports and you can’t! The link on the intranet is broken and you can’t file. This regime is poison and we cannot officially file a complaint with the County? Just like the “transparency” the top four preach about and claim to be. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Sleeping their way to the top only gets you to the top. Now they have to prove they’re qualified, and they have proven they’re not. As long as they continue to sleep with BOS members, nothing is going to change.
I’m curious if all the reports from department heads are supposed to scare the public into voting for a 1% tax increase. Not going to happen in my opinion, plus…..where are any reports from the sheriff’s office and what about the former sheriff who is still getting paid after a year on what kind of leave?
Linda: Today, June 6, is the third day of budget presentations and will focus on public safety including the sheriff’s office.