Transcription
In October of 2025, we held a special FGOC meeting to dive deep into the impacts that the federal and state actions would have on the county budget and our operations. Understanding the effect of the then recently passed HR1 was a main focus of our work that day.
We heard at length from the county administration about funding shortfalls associated with medical enrollment and reimbursements, as well as related negative impacts to public hospitals and care for the indigent and uninsured. We also heard about enrollment impacts associated with food assistance programs such as CalFresh and how that would affect food security in our local community.
Just a few short weeks after that initial FGOC discussion, the community stepped up and passed Measure A. Many of you in this room today passed Measure A, a sales tax which is projected to raise about $330 million annually. And even with these new and important revenues, we still anticipate the need to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the county's budget to ensure its balance in future fiscal years.
Given this difficult reality and with no hope for a change of heart at the federal level anytime soon, a logical next step is to reach out to our partners at the state who are also negatively impacted by federal actions. We are lucky to be represented by a delegation at the state level that understands there are opportunities for us to work together to mitigate some of the most dire impacts that HR1 will have on Santa Clara County residents.
To that end, we will be joined shortly by members of this delegation to both share with them our most pressing concerns about future operations, as well as ideas we have for how they might assist in reducing some of those impacts. We also look forward to hearing directly from them about their ideas for where they may be able to exert leadership to benefit Santa Clara County residents who will suffer under HR1.
And babies are welcome. They can make as much noise as they want in these chambers with these co-chairs right here. If baby wants to hop up here, too. I'm more than open to holding, doing some childcare duties.
Today's meeting has two broad goals. One, to ensure the county and our state delegation are all rolling our shared lifeboat in the same direction. And two, because this conversation has taken place as part of a public meeting, to ensure the community is part of this conversation and has the opportunity to contribute to and shape the conversation as it moves forward.
Specifically, we hope to leave today's meeting with a shared understanding of the areas of overlapping responsibility and interest that are of greatest concern, potential solutions, and how best to collaborate to bring that shared vision to reality. The top three areas of concern include public hospital support, medical and CalFresh enrollment, and health coverage for the uninsured and indigent.
There is a very large list of items where the currently proposed state budget will negatively impact the county, areas affecting everything from IHSS to trust, but everything hinges on the prior three for our county to be able to thrive. I just want to acknowledge that our state legislators are going through their budget process right now. And for them to be able to make time to share that process with us today is a demonstration of their continued partnership with the county, our administration, and our.