Transcription
I'm very respectful that you're making the kind of decisions that are going to continue to keep our health and hospital system flowing and healthy. There is still a significant amount of general fund money going into the health and hospital system. How do you figure we? I think, I think it was last year or the two years ago is when we actually tapered off or stopped increasing that amount, and then last year, I think it actually decreased. What do you project in terms of the future and general fund? What can we expect?
What, what we have told the health system, so you're correct, supervisor. We held it flat, uh, and then actually it did reduce. Given all of the HR1 and other related impacts to the health system, our goal right now with all of those impacts is to hold the general fund investment study. That's going to be a daunting task because it actually then is a reflection of the system absorbing disproportionately the federal related cuts. So that's what we're doing so far.
I don't know if that honestly would be my recommendation to the board in the subsequent fiscal year if there are not at that point from a service delivery standpoint would be so significant that it would merit increased general fund investment. Obviously, that's ultimately decision 100% for the board to make, uh, but just in terms of my thinking of recommendations. But right now, we've told the health system to operate with a flat funding. I don't mean flat percentage, flat dollar amount, and that distinction is very important. A flat dollar amount is equal to a cut because, as the board knows, when we're talking about budgets and budget deficits, operating costs grow every year. They grow significantly every year, whether it's health insurance or CalPERS, retiree health, wages, services, supplies, utilities, you name it. And so when we say flat dollar amount, that actually represents a cut.
The general fund next year, even though we're facing all of these budget challenges, we are forecasting a general fund that is larger than this year's general fund, just not larger by enough of a percentage to cover the growth in cost. Uh, and so a flat dollar amount actually represents a cut. Uh, but we don't believe we're in a position to propose a dollar cut right now with all of the federal cuts impacting the.