2021 CASAP Budget Training

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this insightful session, Josh Huntsinger, the Placer County Agricultural Commissioner, outlines the intricacies of the CASAP budget process. He emphasizes the importance of relationship building, strategic planning, and understanding both the technical and philosophical aspects of budgeting. Huntsinger shares his own experiences and strategies for managing county resources, highlighting the balance required between operational costs and revenue while advocating for agricultural programs' funding. He concludes with a Q&A session, answering questions on budget challenges, funding sources, and the impact of external changes like COVID-19.

Highlights

Josh Huntsinger shares his deep insights into budget management as a county agricultural commissioner. 🎤
The session provides a blend of technical knowledge and strategic wisdom. 🧠
Attendees learned about juggling operational costs and revenue efficiently. ⚖️
Josh emphasized the role of relationships and constant communication in ensuring budget success. 📨

Key Takeaways

Building strong relationships is crucial in budget management. 🤝
Understanding both technical and philosophical aspects of budgeting helps in strategic planning. 📈
Discussing real-world challenges and answers aids in comprehensive learning. 📚
Stay proactive and vigilant regarding county economic shifts and their impact on budgeting. 🚧

Overview

Josh Huntsinger, sharing his unique experience as both the President of CACASA and Placer County Ag Commissioner, dives deep into the nuances of budget management. He stresses the importance of understanding local county rules while participating in state-level organization leadership roles, providing insight into the broader workings of the county system.

Throughout the presentation, he highlights the critical balance between maintaining operational efficiency and securing adequate funding for agricultural and related programs. Josh introduces several strategies, including proactive planning and fostering relationships with key stakeholders like board members and other county departments, to ensure successful budget outcomes.

In the concluding segment, Josh answers questions covering various challenges faced by county departments, especially in light of dynamic changes such as COVID-19 impacts. He shares practical advice on managing unexpected budget cuts and maximizing funding via different state and county sources for sustained department growth and success.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Welcome The chapter titled 'Introduction and Welcome' begins with a recording note and a welcoming message. The speaker is Josh Huntsinger, serving as the Placer County Agricultural Commissioner and Sealer, as well as the 2021 President of CACASA. He reflects on his experiences and describes his role as an adventure, highlighting the rewarding aspects of his position.
00:30 - 01:30: Overview of CACASA and Role of Agricultural Commissioner The chapter provides an overview focusing on the role of CACASA, emphasizing the involvement in various committees and the overall business operations of the association. It highlights the broad scope of responsibilities of the Agricultural Commissioners, detailing their interaction with statewide issues and collaboration with other key figures and departments such as the CDFA Secretary and the DPR Director. The discussion underscores the comprehensive oversight that expands beyond local or county matters, offering a front-row perspective on statewide agricultural affairs.
01:30 - 02:30: Personal Background of Josh Huntsinger Josh Huntsinger shares his early career experiences, highlighting that he was hired as a gypsy moth trapper in Nevada County in 1999. Remarkably, he found a gypsy moth on his first day, marking an impressive start to his career. By the following summer, in 2000, he started working with Placer.
02:30 - 05:00: Budgeting Explanation and Process The chapter titled 'Budgeting Explanation and Process' begins with a narration of a career progression within the agricultural sector. It details the journey from working as a seasonal aid addressing Pierce's disease in Placer County, to becoming an agricultural inspector. The narrator's career advanced from a level one inspector to a senior inspector by 2006. Eventually, due to a move by the previous deputy to another position in Nevada County, the narrator assumed the deputy role in Placer County. The chapter is likely to explore how this experience is related to budgeting within the agricultural department or similar contexts, although the transcript primarily focuses on the career trajectory.
05:00 - 07:00: Importance of Relationships in Budgeting In this chapter, the key focus is on the significance of relationships in the context of budgeting. The narrative introduces the career progression of an individual within the agricultural commissioner's office in Placer County. Initially, the person served as a deputy from 2006 to 2010. Upon the retirement of Christine Turner at the end of 2010, the individual was appointed as the new agricultural commissioner at the beginning of 2011. The chapter subtly underscores the importance of professional relationships and career advancements within a governmental organization, illustrating how role transitions are vital for organizational continuity and personal growth.
07:00 - 09:00: Purpose and Goals of Budgets The chapter 'Purpose and Goals of Budgets' begins with an introduction by a speaker who shares their extensive experience working for nearly 10 years in Placer County, specifically in roles related to pesticide use enforcement, pest exclusion, and noxious weed management. The speaker has a versatile background due to working in a smaller county, resulting in a wide range of responsibilities. This introduction sets the stage for discussing the importance and objectives of budget planning in such diverse work environments.
09:00 - 13:00: Strategic Planning in Budgeting The chapter titled 'Strategic Planning in Budgeting' begins with the speaker expressing their enjoyment for fieldwork, which they only manage to do twice a year at best. Despite missing it, they acknowledge the importance of budgets and admit to spending more time on budget-related tasks than fieldwork. The speaker mentions having a prepared PowerPoint presentation to kick off the session.
13:00 - 15:00: Components of a Budget The chapter emphasizes that there is no single, magical solution for creating a budget. It highlights the variability in processes and timelines across different counties, indicating that each county may have its own specific procedures. The presenter stresses the importance of understanding these general guidelines while recognizing that the actual timing (e.g., January) may differ depending on the county, such as being scheduled in December or February. The information provided serves as a broad overview rather than specific advice tailored to a particular county's budgeting process.
15:00 - 17:00: Budget Cycle and Timeline Example The chapter titled 'Budget Cycle and Timeline Example' is an overview of the budget cycle process across different counties. The speaker intends to highlight aspects that are consistent across counties and those that may vary. The approach is strategic and philosophical rather than focusing on the detailed numbers and math usually associated with budgeting. The speaker is preparing to use a PowerPoint presentation to elaborate on the topic.
17:00 - 21:00: Annual Financial Statement and Gas Tax The chapter covers a presentation on the Annual Financial Statement and Gas Tax. The speaker is preparing to share their screen and ensure the presentation is visible to the audience. They confirm that the PowerPoint is visible before proceeding. The content of the presentation, as inferred from the title, likely discusses details related to annual financial outcomes and specifics about gas taxation, although the transcript does not provide further details.
21:00 - 26:00: Final Thoughts and Q&A The chapter titled 'Final Thoughts and Q&A' emphasizes the importance of understanding the specifics of your county's regulations, particularly for those involved with the agriculture department in Placer County. The speaker highlights that while there are similarities across counties, each has its own unique rules and procedures. For those preparing for an oral exam, the speaker suggests that it is beneficial to be knowledgeable about these specifics, as they have experience being on various panels related to the topic.
26:00 - 33:00: Discussion on COVID-19 Impact on Budgets The chapter discusses the impact of COVID-19 on budgets, focusing on how different counties approach the situation. It emphasizes the importance of understanding and communicating strategies specific to one's own county, acknowledging that it is acceptable not to have experience with other counties' approaches. The speaker mentions a preference for discussing strategy over mathematical details, admitting to having limited math skills and assuming the audience may have stronger abilities in that area.
33:00 - 37:00: Importance of Communicating Budget Needs The chapter emphasizes the importance of communication in budgeting, focusing on the role of relationships. Although it promises to touch upon the mathematics of budgeting briefly, the primary focus is on understanding how communication and relationships play a critical role in creating a balanced budget. The chapter suggests thinking about budgeting in a way that goes beyond mere numbers, highlighting the long-term significance of strong relationships in budget planning and management.
37:00 - 39:00: Exploration of Above the Line and Below the Line The chapter titled 'Exploration of Above the Line and Below the Line' discusses how relationships and reputation play a crucial role in advocating for departmental budgets. The presenter suggests a Q&A session at the end, allowing the audience to note down their questions during the presentation, which will be addressed post-presentation.
39:00 - 41:00: Weights and Measures Program Funding This chapter focuses on funding for the 'Weights and Measures Program,' discussing the importance and purpose of having a budget. It emphasizes that a budget acts as a financial plan, guiding prioritization of financial resources. The discussion includes engaging visuals to maintain interest and is chiefly directed towards ensuring effective communication with the board of supervisors responsible for overseeing allocations and expenditures.
41:00 - 43:00: Impact of Cannabis Regulations on Budgeting The chapter discusses the process of budgeting in light of cannabis regulations. It advises on planning budget allocation with a focus on department goals, while noting that most of the budget is non-discretionary. Fixed expenses such as staff salaries and benefits must be considered, highlighting the limited flexibility in spending decisions. The necessity of aligning budget plans with departmental objectives is emphasized, recognizing regulatory impacts on these decisions.
43:00 - 46:00: Dealing with Budget Cuts In this chapter titled 'Dealing with Budget Cuts,' the focus is on managing finances, particularly amidst budget constraints. The discussion highlights the fixed nature of certain expenses such as vehicles, mileage, facility, utility, and IT costs, which are largely out of one's control. The emphasis is on the importance of effectively managing discretionary funds by clearly identifying financial goals. It is crucial to make strategic decisions regarding where to allocate money, determining priorities, and deciding which programs should be prioritized to achieve desired outcomes.
46:00 - 47:00: Key Stakeholders in Budget Process In this chapter titled 'Key Stakeholders in Budget Process,' the speaker discusses essential considerations in budgeting. The chapter emphasizes the importance of defining clear goals and distinguishing between one-time and ongoing expenditures. It also highlights the need to anticipate changes in staffing requirements. The speaker notes that understanding different types of budgets, such as zero-based budgeting where one starts over annually, is crucial.
47:00 - 48:20: Closing Remarks and Final Questions The chapter titled 'Closing Remarks and Final Questions' discusses the budgeting process in Placer County. It explains that the budget typically rolls forward with what is called a 'base budget.' Essentially, the starting point for the new fiscal year's budget is the same amount as the previous year's budget. Adjustments are made for amounts that are above or below the previous year's budget. These adjustments are where significant decision-making occurs, indicating active financial planning and justification for any changes from the previous budget.

2021 CASAP Budget Training Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 this conference will now be recorded alrighty well good afternoon everyone it's a real pleasure to be with you as jose mentioned i'm josh huntsinger i'm the placer county agricultural commissioner and sealer and also uh the 2021 uh president of cacasa so that's uh that's been quite an adventure this year i think um the neatest part of that role has been just really
00:30 - 01:00 being involved in all of the committees and all of the business of cacasa kind of at a high level and seeing all the different moving parts and seeing where this this group of commissioners is working on this big statewide issue and this other group is working on this and working with the cdfa secretary and the dpr director and their staff and really kind of having that front row seat to the whole statewide happenings rather than just focusing on kind of the local area group or my own county or
01:00 - 01:30 or whatever so that's been a pretty cool experience this year just a little background on myself i was first hired in nevada county actually is a gypsy moth trapper back in 1999 and i have the distinction of finding a gypsy moth on my first day at work so that was pretty cool so found an a-rated test my first day on the job so that's that's pretty good track record i think um the next summer of 2000 started with placer
01:30 - 02:00 county as a glasswing sharpshooter pierce's disease seasonal aid and worked throughout the summer for placer county in that capacity and then got hired in the fall as an inspector and so worked as an ag inspector in placer county from the level one up to senior inspector in 2006 and then when the deputy here in placer uh moved to become the nevada county ag commissioner um i then um got to be the deputy at
02:00 - 02:30 commissioner concealer here in placer county we just have a commissioner deputy supervising inspector and then a number of inspectors so we don't have multiple deputies so i was the deputy in placer county from 2006 to 2010 and then in late 2010 uh my boss christine turner retired and uh right at the end of 2010 and then i was appointed at the beginning of 2011 as um as the ag commissioner here in
02:30 - 03:00 placer county so i've been almost 10 years on that job i i counted as 10 because she left in october and so i've been kind of at least acting in the role for a little over 10 years now so um that's a little background on myself i have a lot of a lot of time in the field on pesticide use enforcement pest exclusion weight truck you know we're a smaller county so you just get a whole variety a lot of uh noxious weed work um all kinds of different things so
03:00 - 03:30 but i really enjoy all of it and uh get out in the field every chance i get which seems like it's about two days a year at best so i missed that part of it but um exciting stuff like budgets are important too and i work on that stuff quite a bit more than getting out in the field at this point unfortunately so with that um we'll get started on the on um i have a powerpoint presentation i have prepared i will tell you right off the bat
03:30 - 04:00 there's nothing magic that i'm gonna present that's one thing i want to mention i also want to mention that everything is different from each county so it's super important the actual processes and timelines are going to be different from county to county i'm going to give you a general understanding but when i say january your county might do it in december or february so don't take that to the bank if you're dealing with your specific county these are just really general things
04:00 - 04:30 some of them i'll try to highlight what's fairly consistent county to county to my knowledge versus what might vary from county to county but um i'm gonna this is gonna be very high level more philosophical more strategic rather than um a budget itself which is really just numbers and math and it's pretty simple at its basic elements so let me get the powerpoint up here um just bear with me for
04:30 - 05:00 one second while i share my screen and we'll make sure that is going on here so let me um go ahead and do that so let's see here all right so are we looking good there on that i think so um jose give me a thumbs up if you're seeing my powerpoint okay good so we'll get started here so first of all a couple things as i mentioned that i want to cover with
05:00 - 05:30 you um like i said it pays to know what your county does and it's i almost guarantee you if you're not a member of the placer county ag department it's going to be different than what i'm going to tell you so this is just it's a little bit of what i know in placer county other counties are very similar but they're not exactly the same so learn what the specifics of your county are if you're preparing for an oral exam i i think you know having been on enough of those panels it's good to
05:30 - 06:00 um it's good to mention that hey i can't speak for other counties but here's how we do it in my county and i think that's always an acceptable answer to give the oral exam panel to say you know what i've taken the time to learn my county i don't have experience in other counties and that's okay um again i'm going to cover more strategy rather than math i'm sure most of you on the call are better at math than i am but even me with my limited math skills
06:00 - 06:30 can put together a balanced budget so we're not going to cover the mathematics of it other than a little bit at the very end specific to that strategy i'm going to talk a little bit about relationships and i want you to listen for the significance of relationships within budgeting and that might be a little bit outside of what you would normally think about with budgets but i'm a huge believer in how long-standing
06:30 - 07:00 relationships and reputation affect your ability to advocate for your own department when budgeting and then lastly we will get started here so i think what we'll do is have a q a section at the end so let me go through my presentation write down your questions and then i'm happy to go back to a particular slide if we need to during the q a but for now i'm going to go through these slides and then we'll go from there so with that
07:00 - 07:30 powerpoint okay so um first things first and i have some fun photos here to keep you hopefully awake on a tuesday afternoon so back and way up what's the purpose of a budget a budget is a plan and it's a plan for how you want to prioritize your money so that so your board of supervisors is ultimately
07:30 - 08:00 going to approve a certain amount of money for you to spend and you need to put together a plan on how you're going to spend that money you need to think about these things the first is your department goals i should mention right off the bat that most of the money in your budget is not going to be discretionary it's going to be money that you don't have a choice in how it's spent if you have a certain number of employees and they all have a fixed salary and a certain benefit rate
08:00 - 08:30 and you have a certain amount of vehicles and a certain amount of mileage and your facility costs your utility costs your it costs those things are just to a large extent outside of your control but then there is discretionary money and that's really where you need to identify your goals and say is my goal to spend the money over here or over there what do i want to accomplish which programs am i going to prioritize
08:30 - 09:00 um so that's that's the first thing is to back way up and say what are my goals and is this a one-time expenditure or an ongoing expenditure do i need more staff what do i need to do and that's really gets into the second point there which is staff uh so anticipated changes so there's different types of budgets i'm sure you've studied the difference between like a zero based budget where you basically have to start over every year
09:00 - 09:30 and justify every dollar in placer county we typically roll forward with what we call a base budget and so if you your budget was x dollars last year you usually start with that same number of dollars rolling forward into the next year and then anything above and beyond or below last year's budget is where um a lot of the uh decision making takes place so if uh you know like if i have a number of um
09:30 - 10:00 inspectors who are due for a promotion i gotta look at okay i'm gonna promote three of my inspectors they're now gonna cost more in salary cost and so that's gonna be a change or i'm wanting to add a new position or i need to add a new vehicle or anything like that some of the huge changes we've dealt with recently obviously would the biggest one would be our gas tax revenue and over the last couple of years gas tax revenue has
10:00 - 10:30 radically increased and so in anticipating that and building your budget you need to say hey my revenue is actually going to go up a bunch i also have a maintenance of effort requirement how am i going to budget based on that significant change that that i know i need to anticipate and plan for um very timely is the discussion of the big picture i think a lot of times there's a temptation to just look
10:30 - 11:00 within the ag department and that's one of the things as you move up through our system at the inspector level you don't have to think very much about the rest of the county operation but i will tell you very clearly that the sheriff in your county and the sheriff's budget has a big impact on your budget and the overall county the big picture and all these health and human services the sheriff's
11:00 - 11:30 department these other really big departments and how they're doing financially has an impact on how your department the ag department is doing financially and the overall county you know what are sales tax revenues like what are property tax revenues like for the overall county and then that affects the general fund and so that affects your department and so we don't live in any kind of isolated bubble in the ag department we're part of a bigger organization
11:30 - 12:00 called the county government and what's going on overall with county government is going to a large extent dictate what's going on with the ag department's budget and whether you can ask for additional items or whether you're cutting back and doing hiring freezes and things like that so kind of as you move up through the situation or through the system and are promoted into more of those leadership roles that's something you really have to think about is is is that big picture you can't just live in that
12:00 - 12:30 isolated little island of the ag department um again and here's where we start talking about relationships and and also the big picture is your board of supervisors so the board of supervisors are ultimately the five people and i think it's more in san francisco county if you're there so um but those are the elected representatives who ultimately approve the county budget and so again in that sense of as you move up
12:30 - 13:00 into leadership and are more responsible for things like your department's budget you need to be aware of what the board of supervisors priorities are and they might be different from the priorities spelled out the food and ag code food and ag code might really heavily you know it heavily prioritizes pest prevention programs but my board of supervisors while they care about pest prevention they also care about promoting agriculture and doing things like promoting wineries
13:00 - 13:30 and promoting ag tourism and things like that so they want me to also recognize within my budget some work on those types of priorities in addition to pest prevention activities like pest exclusion and pest detection so if i didn't include those other things i would be sideways with my board who are ultimately my bosses so that factors into that budget building and then also the multi-year project so there's ongoing expenses and there's one-time expenses and so
13:30 - 14:00 they're treated typically a lot differently so they're they're you know an ongoing expense so if i hire an employee this year because i have money this year but i don't have money next year i can't hire a full-time permanent position because even though i can afford it this year i'd have to lay them off right again next year so it's not smart if i don't have ongoing funding to hire a permanent employee who would be an
14:00 - 14:30 ongoing cost so that that's an example of that so versus you know buying a piece of equipment you buy it once and then you own it and there might be some maintenance fees costs attached to it but um if there's not then it's a one-time purchase and the expense comes and goes and then it's off the books so really being aware of what type of expense you're actually proposing very important so all right so
14:30 - 15:00 we're gonna go into a little bit of philosophy here now and this is again where uh relationships and reputation are so critical and i'm a huge believer in this and my ultimate goal is down there at the bottom to identify those key people in my organization so whether it's a board member whether it's somebody in my ceo's office that's an analyst that i work with
15:00 - 15:30 or someone in a different department or whatever i want those key people to understand what my department does understand the importance of it and not just understand the importance of it but also believe in the importance and become an ally and an advocate for me so they say that stuff that the ag department is doing is super important and i understand it and i want to support it um and that's the
15:30 - 16:00 ultimate goal and so you know i have up there at the top of this slide agent of change versus status quo and i'm a big believer in being an agent of change and by that i mean when i go to a place i want to leave it better than where i found it it's very easy to just stick in your rut and go up nobody supports me i'm losing staff or i'm not gonna ever gain any new staff or oh it'd be really nice to have that cool
16:00 - 16:30 piece of equipment but we can never afford that i'd love to have a you know electric vehicle charging equipment but that's expensive i'll probably never get it i'll have to rely on the state it's very easy to get in that rut just saying you know poor little ag department we don't have a lot of support i'm very opposed to that approach i really want to you know and not overnight but be someone who's constantly improving my department
16:30 - 17:00 and and leaving it better than when i when i when i found it my reputation is very important to me when i come to budgeting my goal is to have the people who control my budget so my ceo's office my board of supervisors they believe that i'm competent when it comes to handling my budget that i'm frugal like a tight wad that i that i'm careful with it that i treat that money as though it's my own
17:00 - 17:30 we got to remember that every single dollar that hits our departments comes from a taxpayer's pocket whether it's through a fee or through a tax every dollar in our budgets every dollar and every one of our salaries comes out of a taxpayer's pocket we got to keep that sacred and treat it as though we're looking that taxpayer in the eye when we spend that dollar and so um i treat every dollar in my department that way i view them that way and that reputation is really powerful
17:30 - 18:00 if you can cultivate that also having a good plan so when i first became the deputy in placer county we had a situation with a weight truck where we didn't have a very good weight truck and i really wanted a new one and it was right during the economic downturn of like 2008 2009 and i said how am i going to get 120 000 or whatever weight truck in the middle of an economic downturn and where i started with that was
18:00 - 18:30 having a good plan and so before i went to my ceo's office and my board of supervisors and said hey i want to spend 120 000 i created a whole plan and i figured out how we were going to pay for it how having a new truck that had less maintenance requirements was going to save us money it was going to save us time because it wasn't going to break down laid out every facet of that request
18:30 - 19:00 and i didn't breathe a word of it to anybody until i had a really good plan in place and that i could hand to them and say i've got a full game plan i'm not going off half baked here and i think that's a really important point you don't ask for things unless you have a rock solid plan rock solid justification and have a reputation for not asking for toys that you don't need that's such a big one when i talk to my
19:00 - 19:30 financial people in the ceo's office and they say oh my gosh these departments just come in in may and june at the end of the fiscal year and just go on these spending sprees and buy all this junk that destroys their reputation and they don't they lose all of their um their kind of their their points that they have stored up so to speak when they do that kind of behavior where i would rather return a little money to the county general fund at the end of the year because i didn't spend it
19:30 - 20:00 then then spend it on things i don't truly need and that reputation that's not a one-time one-year kind of a thing that's something you build up over many years so when you do ask for something they say ah here comes josh he's asking for something he never asks for something unless he actually needs it and that's such a key point and then finally this is the salesmanship um the the the fact that we're doing important work
20:00 - 20:30 guess what nobody's gonna know about all the important work we do unless we tell them and we show them and we teach them and it's not a one time like hey we're doing really important stuff it's an over and over and over again type of thing where it finally clicks with these important decision makers over time we've prepared for for my county we have a little what we do document it's literally called what we do and it's this little booklet and i hand it out to new board members
20:30 - 21:00 new aides to my board of supervisors uh new ceo staff and they get that we walk through it and then i go over it i repeat it and they over time figure it out and there's always some key thing we do that they think is cool or they've had a personal experience with like you know credit card skimmers on gas pumps that's a great one everybody's like oh yeah i've seen that in the news oh you guys have a role in that awesome and just those little things you can latch on to and really build a
21:00 - 21:30 relationship with and you know and that's to that last point of education you know most people don't know we exist much less what we do and that's part a big part of your job in this whole thing you can't ask for money until people actually understand what you're going to spend it on so um hope that's helpful let's go to the next uh the next slide here and i have the key point down at the bottom of that slide is failure to plan is planning to fail
21:30 - 22:00 so you have to be thinking really strategically and long term i know for myself with budgeting and with workload i think simultaneously in a lot of different time frames so i think about what do i want to accomplish on a daily basis so that's that's pretty mundane stuff like you know i need to return some emails and phone calls and i need to talk to this person and then kind of weekly hey by the end of the week i want to get this project out the door and then
22:00 - 22:30 monthly i need to do x y and z and get it done this month and then as you get into a three month time frame and a six month time frame and a year-long time frame you're really looking at that overall annual cycle and breaking it down into four quarters and saying hey what are the things that are i can anticipate happening this year and how am i going to accomplish all that and then there's those really big ticket items like i mentioned like starting from scratch
22:30 - 23:00 on buying a weight truck or adding a new employee or a new building or something like of that magnitude and that's going to be like a five-year window um you know when i get new new staff and we start working on some of these things i say hey county wheels move pretty slow and if you want something expensive or big or different it's gonna take a while to accomplish so kind of simultaneously managing all these different time frames within your workload that you're you're
23:00 - 23:30 working on and your budget you know uh that that's really key like if you're going to ask for a big ticket item it's going to take a few years to get it probably unless something miraculous happens and you get a windfall of money or something like gas tax and so you have to work on it and you have to continuously move it forward one step at a time over over some period of time simultaneous to that you have to also be managing your daily weekly and monthly
23:30 - 24:00 tasks and getting all your work done and so that's really the art of it so that's kind of from a time frame standpoint how i how i approach budgeting so okay so now we'll get a little more into some of the real basics of budgeting and go through some of these you know the nuts and bolts of a budget or the components and so these are some of the terms and these are like if you're taking a deputy exam or a commissioner
24:00 - 24:30 oral exam commissioner sealer oral exam these are really important terms to be familiar with they're also just excellent general knowledge as you grow in your job and get exposed to these so obviously revenue revenue is is a nice term that is the term for the money that comes to you so whether you have a contract or you charge a fee or you you know impose a fine or whatever that is all revenue that
24:30 - 25:00 comes to you and so half of your budget or one of the one of the two broad components of your budget is your revenue budget and so you say from these various sources i anticipate collecting x amount of money the second one the counter to revenue is expenditures so that's the money that leaves you so that is all of the money that you spend so the rev the revenues the money that comes to you the expenditures of the money that
25:00 - 25:30 leaves you and these are very general broad terms um the general fund and i think there's a lot of different terms for a general fund it's gf a county contribution net county cost you know i'm sure there's a lot of others those are just some of the ones we use interchangeably here placer county um but typically for you know to my knowledge most if not all agriculture weights measures departments the expenditure number
25:30 - 26:00 is bigger than the revenue number and when the expenditure number is bigger than the revenue number the difference is made up by county general fund so just to make up a hypothetical if your expenditures are a million dollars and your revenues are eight hundred thousand dollars then the general fund is going to have to make up two hundred thousand dollars so that's not revenue that you directly collect into your budget that is county general fund which are
26:00 - 26:30 general tax dollars that come to your county and they don't have strings attached to them other than you know the government code legal constraints on them and then the board of supervisors gets to decide how to allocate that general fund and so that's a really important um thing to consider when we talk about um gas tax and annual financial statements in a minute as well
26:30 - 27:00 so supplemental requests that's a term here in placer county i'm sure there's lots of other terms for it but that's you know we have a base budget that we start off of and then if i want things above and beyond that they become what are called supplemental requests so in addition to my base i want additional things on top of that those are called supplemental requests and i've kind of been a little silly with the basics of these descriptions but they're you know it's not super complicated it's not brain surgery or rocket science it's it's uh you know the just think of
27:00 - 27:30 these in these simple terms staff is a really important thing when it comes to building a budget because warm bodies human beings are typically the most expensive part of your budget um the people that work for you um are really expensive they uh they have salary costs obviously but then they also have benefit costs and so really understanding all of those benefit costs and cool things like uh medical insurance dental
27:30 - 28:00 insurance retirement benefits we have like a line item i think for oped which is other post employment benefits workers comp insurance there's i don't know five or six different line items just for benefits in my county and so understanding those and the fact that for every dollar we pay out in salary we pay out another about 60 cents or so so 60 of every dollar is
28:00 - 28:30 also then spent on benefits so it's a pretty significant cost at least you know that's kind of the ratio here in my county so um really as staffing levels go up and down that's typically the most powerful driver and where you end up with your budget and your expenditures in particular stuff or items these are the things you buy so that's another component of your budget so if you're purchasing
28:30 - 29:00 equipment that is the stuff you buy and so that also is usually a significant part of your budget and then services these are things that other people do for you that are not your employees so these could be internal services like if you have an i.t department county council your auditor controller all of those kinds of folks that provide services to your department your building maintenance or your facilities um those would be internal and then there's external like if you hire a
29:00 - 29:30 contractor to do something for you that would be an external service cost and so these are these are just some there's other things other components to your budget but these are big the big ticket high level items um i think again if you're preparing for an exam or something really understanding what each of these components is should serve you well slide advancement is funky here okay so this is again a great example that on this slide
29:30 - 30:00 of where understanding your individual county and how your individual county works is really important this is this is basically a placer county calendar i would assume that this is relatively close to what most other counties do things like the fiscal year don't change every county is the same as far as the fiscal year dates and the state operates off the same fiscal year dates but a lot of these other things may vary to some extent so for so just so we understand for placer county this is what i this is what we do your county is
30:00 - 30:30 probably a little bit different or maybe maybe a little bit similar so a fiscal year for everybody except the federal government so state government local government here in california is july 1st through june 30th it's not on a calendar year basis it's on a fiscal year basis so when you look at like our our recent noxious weed eradication contracts they span several fiscal years because they cover calendar years so you got to be aware of that when you're looking at like revenue contracts
30:30 - 31:00 and stuff they may span several fiscal years or not and that gets a little complicated sometimes and you can also do some strategy around which year do i want my revenue to come into um so july 30th or july 1st through june 30th is the fiscal year so for my county we start preparing our budget which starts july 1st we start preparing that budget usually in january so my ceo's office sends out a budget template and says
31:00 - 31:30 start working on this it's due around the end of february or the beginning of march so then we submit that budget simultaneously we're at the 50 mark on the fiscal year so so january 1st is the midpoint of the fiscal year so we will also kind of working through december and into january look at the halfway point in our current year budget while simultaneously preparing for our next fiscal year's budget and if there's a adjustments that need
31:30 - 32:00 to be made like oh we got more revenues that we than we anticipated or were running a little hot on our expenditures and need to make an adjustment those kinds of things would be addressed in like december or january time frame while we're also preparing our next fiscal year's budget and then typically in march and april we start reviewing what my department has submitted through my ceo's office and my board of supervisors and saying okay this is what you're asking for
32:00 - 32:30 we support this we have some concerns about that we're unclear on that we start having those types of discussions and negotiations and then sometime in either may or june finally that action item to approve the county's um preliminary budget is is uh brought to the board of supervisor for approval and that has to be done prior to july 1st so that on july 1st we have a new approved budget to work off of
32:30 - 33:00 however between july and august there's often a lot of closeout at the end of the fiscal year some counties may call it month 13 and obviously a year only has 12 months but what they call it is at least in my county is month 13 where they're kind of truing up all the end of the year close out of the past fiscal year and any last minute adjustments to to make everything squared away once that process is done kind of by august or so we have a pretty good sense of any
33:00 - 33:30 additional changes that need to be made to the now current year fiscal year budget and then we'll typically come back in like september and make any final tweaks to what we call our final adopted budget and then also in september we start looking at our unclaimed gas tax and working on our annual financial statement that we need to submit to cdfa so it kind of follows on that once we close
33:30 - 34:00 out the previous fiscal year that's where we can start on our annual financial statement for that fiscal year so let's talk about that a little bit so the annual financial statement hopefully everybody's familiar with that the afr or afs depending on what you want to call it it's due on october 31st of each year um it's takes quite a bit to prepare that document i'm not going to get into the nuts and bolts of that that's another conversation and another presentation for you um but it's due on october 31st
34:00 - 34:30 typically at least in my county we don't get to start working on it till august just because we're closing out all that year-end stuff and making sure the numbers are final um the significance of that report is that our unclaimed gas tax revenue is based on that report that we submit so that's our largest typically our largest single source of revenue and so it's a really important document it is again going back to the
34:30 - 35:00 relationships and the reputation and the education that you are responsible for as a leader in your department this is a really hard counterintuitive thing to explain to people outside of your department some of your really uh detailed fiscal folks in your auditor's office or your ceo or cao's department may understand it your budget people may but um that whole we spend money in order to get money
35:00 - 35:30 back in revenue in the next fiscal year it's it's it's pretty complex to explain and that's why it's always a big study topic on exams and stuff um so that's where that education and that relationship and that constant kind of communication with your decision making folks is really really important the other thing that's really important to note relative to budgeting
35:30 - 36:00 is that gas tax payments typically come in in late march or into april most commonly now the fiscal year ends in the end of june and so if your biggest chunk of revenue that you budgeted for doesn't come till april till mid april you may have especially if you have new fiscal management folks um working on your budget they may be paying attention to that and going hey we're two-thirds of the way through
36:00 - 36:30 the fiscal year and you've only collected less than half of your revenue for the year we're really concerned and that's again where you have to educate them and say yes this portion of my revenue budget will not come in until april and so don't sweat it we're keeping an eye on it and we're communicating with cdfa and all is well and that that's a big point to uh to educate those you know especially when you get a new analyst who hasn't gone through an annual budget cycle with you
36:30 - 37:00 yet because they can get really antsy about um where your revenues at um that late in the fiscal year the other big thing along the lines of reputation and education is the maintenance of effort and all the strategy that goes around how much money you spend the general fund contribution we had kind of what i would classify as a windfall in the last couple years in gas tax revenue and it was really important to communicate to cacasa's membership to
37:00 - 37:30 say you gotta proactively work with your your fiscal analysts your ceo's office your board to help them understand that if they replace your general fund with this new gas tax revenue you will not meet your maintenance of effort and therefore you will not get money the next year from gas tax you you stand a good chance of forfeiting your gas tax revenue in the next year so um that that's a real that was a really tough lift for a number of counties who struggled
37:30 - 38:00 with that and um had to kind of sell that concept to their management and so there's a lot of strategy around that we could spend all day just talking about that and how you spend money strategically and advocate for four things that will help you maintain your maintenance of effort and your your gas tax revenue so um for now i'll just leave it at that and we can talk more about that the question
38:00 - 38:30 answered if you'd like to lastly i just want to reiterate that none of this stuff is rocket science um this is literally how i think about our budgets i try to be a little bit conservative when i budget i don't like i get really really nervous if we spend our exact budget and collect our exact amount of budgeted revenue i always want to collect more revenue than i budget for if i commit to collecting a hundred dollars in my budget i want to actually collect 125 dollars
38:30 - 39:00 just so i'm safe and even if that extra 25 you know what i'm saying hypothetically if that 25 just goes back to the general fund so be it i'd rather do that than only collect 90 and have to explain why i over-promised and under-delivered same thing with your expenditures spend less than you budget for overestimate slightly now if you get really sloppy and are just having massive hundreds of thousands of dollars in unspent funds
39:00 - 39:30 you're probably going to get your hand slapped and a lot more scrutiny of your budget but be conservative bring in more revenue than you promise spend less than you propose to identify and communicate with key staff in the other departments that manage your budget so whether it's your ceo or cao's office your auditor controller your board of supervisors all of those offices are super important and keep up on the communication with them if you get in trouble the earlier you
39:30 - 40:00 let them know the more help they can be to you they don't want your department to fail they but they do not like surprises and so finally remember the value and purpose of what your department does we don't just do pest exclusion activities because we like opening packages and looking at plants we do it because we are protecting the environment and the
40:00 - 40:30 public and our agriculture industry in california from invasive pests there's an important reason why we do each and every program that we do and so keep that in mind and advocate for these programs because they are really important so with that i'm going to stop sharing my screen here i'll bring it back and um and we will uh open it up for questions and answers
40:30 - 41:00 so i i hope you're all still engaged here and i hope this was informative and helpful to you very good actually so everybody's on mute right now feel free to unmute yourself i have a couple of questions that were sent to me but actually i want to you know open the floor up for any any questions follow-ups that you would like josh to uh help us understand here uh i did want to echo some of the elements josh covered i've helped it
41:00 - 41:30 with a couple of budgets and you know having that philosophy of understanding the tactical not just the technical as josh mentions every budget concept breaks into two the technical you can learn how to use shirt but you can learn how to use peoplesoft that's the technical how you put the numbers in there the the philosophy and the tactical is learning how to calculate and anticipate what are the changes what are the staffing changes what are the upcoming costs you know you look at the mou's to see what colas your
41:30 - 42:00 employees are getting the larger the department you work for the larger the impact a five percent or a four percent call over the next fiscal year is going to be so you're going to need to allocate that in your budget if you don't your analyst and the budget office in the county looks at it regularly and i was actually smiling a little bit when josh was talking about the analyst calling they call me a first quarter because 25 either my expenditures are not at 25 or my revenue is not at 25 and it's a very
42:00 - 42:30 casual call at the mid-year process they expect me to be at approximately 50 expenditures but also 50 revenue they do start getting very nervous because our budget it's an aggregate budget for the whole county it's a component of an aggregate budget and they are monitoring the entire county they're looking at the departments who are not making the revenue or who are significantly exceeding or even under um underspending their expenditures because if we are going to be underspend
42:30 - 43:00 they want to take the money and be able to put it somewhere else where they're going to be able to use it within the same fiscal year so with that said i will open it up for any questions that you may have here for josh don't be shy you're all on and you feel free to admit yourself hi this is victor from the city and county in san francisco um there's one thing that you brought up and jose brought it up
43:00 - 43:30 who looks at these budgets as a work plan i mean our work plan is a separate document but but when the analysts look at this our monies with the ugt it comes in at different times and jose described that that the money doesn't come how do you advocate to tell them look for every dollar we spend in the general fund if you're just patient you're going to get 40 cents especially in these tight times how do you navigate those kind of politics or that kind of diplomacy of let us do what is mandated let us do
43:30 - 44:00 what is covered by by the fact so that we get some more revenue because i think that's going to be a pressure going forward because a lot of our fees have have dropped dramatically and i want to be able to argue with the budget or with a work plan what is the best tool to advocate that for every dollar we spend you get 40 cents yeah um for myself i would say that is a constant you know i i'm probably sound like a broken record but at the same time that is such an important topic
44:00 - 44:30 that in a anytime i get a new analyst a new fiscal analyst who's overseeing my department that is a dedicated meeting i mean that that point that you just made that is worth a dedicated meaning to me because it's such an and i think gas tax is actually more like 60 cents on the dollar now that really wow yeah it was traditionally about 39 to 40 cents and then when the sb1 revenues started coming in it i think it jumped to more like 60 cents on the dollar
44:30 - 45:00 um so that is something where for myself i have a meeting every so once in a while with the actual county ceo i'm talking to him about it i'm talking to the deputy ceo that's over my department i'm talking to my own analyst who's assigned to my department i'm talking to the super nerdy fiscal guys who actually oversee and build the county budget itself and i'm making sure every one of them knows about this issue and gets it and that's my
45:00 - 45:30 goal and that takes time and it takes a lot of effort but it's super important and you have to be very proactive in that education and also consistent and constant with it it's not a one and done kind of a thing yeah victor uh oh and i agree with uh josh definitely that it takes effort to keep them in the know of how budgeting works for the ag department it is a big reason why we are licensed individuals so you have to be licensed to be in this business if you want to be
45:30 - 46:00 a deputy if you want to be a commissioner or sailor you have to have a license and part of the license is understanding this that we're talking about and a way that you use that is uh let's say as you said let's say our work plan we had a contract and i get the news from cdfa that the funding suddenly went away and they're going to cut it by half but i still want to be able to do that work i can go to downtown and ask for a general fund approval for that amount and i can explain it to you then i'm asking you for a hundred thousand dollars additional general fund to finish the year however if it's above the line
46:00 - 46:30 agriculture one of the 12 categories i can let them know we'll spend 100 000 but that money is going to contribute to our maintenance of effort which in turn next year will come back in the tune of six cents to the dollar in unclaimed gas tax revenue so in reality you're getting a hundred and sixty thousand dollars of service to our local citizens for something very meaningful whether it's controlling a pest or eradicating a pest at the cost to the county of 100 000. there's the there's ways to really and
46:30 - 47:00 it's not a lie it's really what it is it's a matter of understanding and being able to sell it i mean there's few investments that have that return and i mean and it keeps people employed it keeps people busy it keeps things public it keeps it keeps fixed costs and asset costs you know running and and it's just it's amazing how hard it is to explain uh to different types of people with different types of goals i mean the analysts will see it will see it very differently in the board of supervisors as a a pet project that they think is more important than the mandate so it's quite a political
47:00 - 47:30 position i know it belongs mostly to the commissioner and the sealer but if there's any support in any small dialogue that we can have from the inspector up it's very important to advocate for these programs to continue yeah yeah and then there are times jose i was gonna i was just gonna add quickly another thing you can do is when you're making this request even if it's coming from an inspector supervisor deputy you can do some of the late work go to the county page the county budget if you haven't read it there is a
47:30 - 48:00 county budget it's a big one they have their mission their vision their priorities if there's ways that you can align meaningful elements of your request with the county's priorities with whatever the priority is we have programs that touch every single priority whether it's social environmental business and things that we do touch everything so the goal is that you can frame your request not only on the money part but also on the meaningful part to go to the cio to go to the board and say hey look the county's five priorities are
48:00 - 48:30 this this project aligns very cleanly with this three elements that are county priorities so now it's no longer the act department's uh goal it contributes to the county's goal yeah okay i was just gonna say there are times when you'll get told too with the gas tax hey it's still a 40 hit on the general fund you know so yeah it's all well and good that we get 60 cents back on the dollar but you know you're still asking for that 40 cents in general fund and
48:30 - 49:00 you know some and that's just part of the game too you know and you got to be prepared for that and so that's where the prioritization and i think what jose just said is is brilliant because almost guarantee you that your county probably has some economic development broad board of supervisors priorities around things like economic development quality of life environmental protection these kinds of things and so if you can explain how the program you're asking for support for
49:00 - 49:30 aligns with those things that's huge so thank you jose thank you guys and i'll end it there but that really stresses the importance of building relationships with other people because everybody's baby is very important and you really have to negotiate basically you have to have relationships yeah thank you very much excellent so josh we have a couple of questions i'll read you the first one what happens to the program when the funding is cut mid-year through the mid midway through the year what happens to your budget to your department if the budget
49:30 - 50:00 suddenly gets reduced how do you navigate that uh you know let's let's think about that so so with that jose do you read that to be more of like if a cdfa contract went away or more like like is that kind of what the question is about or i think so or a sudden reduction in the maximum general fund allocation for your department i can see it that way also yeah basically how do you time the belt in the middle of the year right so i think there again the first
50:00 - 50:30 thing is the relationships and the communication and education like we talked about so making sure everybody that matters is aware of hey this happened first of all this is going on this is the situation i have so that they're not surprised by it or i'm caught unaware and then understanding what that impact is um what are the costs of that program it's probably pretty much you know this is like a classic kind of a deputy question almost though you know so you know it's
50:30 - 51:00 like people are probably the most expensive part of any program and so then you have to look at okay can i reallocate those people to you know first of all can i get the money from a different source why can't i go to my board of supervisors and say hey i lost this contract or this revenue didn't come in like i thought it would i don't want to lay off people and so can you replace that with you know general fund so that would be the you know kind of the first general kind of approach and then
51:00 - 51:30 secondly are there other funded programs you could put those people into to you know avoid layoffs you know is there a different way to accomplish the same work in a more efficient manner you just you just got to kind of go down that role of what actually happened informing people informing the right people and asking them for help looking at you know how how where in the priority scale is that program and maybe you get rid of something else and keep doing it even though it doesn't pay
51:30 - 52:00 or you know ultimately you know kind of layoffs as your last resort certainly but you know obviously with a lot of our programs we can you know laugh seasonal people a lot easier than more permanent staff and transfer the work to permanent staff if we have to so it's none of this is super complicated it's just you have to kind of go through it methodically and cover all the bases yeah ultimately you may end up with the shuffle if you have a mandated activity that suddenly lasts funding it's still mandated activity so you might have to
52:00 - 52:30 shuffle certain things certain activities a location of hours for non-fu for non-mandated and funded you know activities there's a shuffle that could happen within your department to meet your mandates because ultimately i think that's a high priority meeting your mandates yeah so next question how much impact if any do you think covet will have to the ugt bucket or availability yeah great question and we've been talking like so we have a gas tax
52:30 - 53:00 subcommittee within cacasa so i think louis mendoza and butte county is the chair of that and work really closely with him on that we've we've been talking with cdfa a lot about that issue and i think the things that are important to remember is that the overall gas tax in the state i think is down because people are telecommuting instead of driving into work a lot so there's a lot less vehicle miles being traveled a lot less gas being burned however our gasoline tax does not come from on-road vehicles
53:00 - 53:30 it comes from off-road vehicles and so farming equipment and landscaping equipment leaf blowers weed eaters tractors those kinds of things are where our gas tax is derived from that's the whole point of it being unclaimed because theoretically all these businesses could claim it on their taxes and get a refund but none of them track it none of them request that refund and so that's why that pool of money exists in the first place so people commuting does not or not
53:30 - 54:00 commuting does not theoretically affect the gas tax the other thing is that it's calculated on an every two two year basis and so we're in the middle of a two-year calculation between caltrans and cdfa so i believe next year they'll be looking at that again and so for the time being it's kind of status quo and there's no immediate impact it may be in a year or so if we see like hey there was a lot less landscaping or a lot less farming going on based on cdfa and
54:00 - 54:30 caltrans is i think it's mostly a caltrans calculation some of their magic map that they do on that that would be where we'd see an impact but i think first and foremost the thing we've we've really settled on is it's not people's telecommuting does not affect unclaimed gas tax in general in a broad sense all right excellent next question the examples you gave are all exclusion
54:30 - 55:00 etc for unclaimed gas tax what about weights and measures funding or expenditures you can talk a little bit about weights and measures uh funding sources and expenditures yeah so weights and measures is different obviously in that it's it's below the line not eligible for unclaimed gas tax reimbursement and also the other big difference fundamentally is that weights and measures has a dedicated revenue source unless unlike pesticide use enforcement or
55:00 - 55:30 most of our pest prevention activities we we are not allowed to charge a fee like when someone has a shipment of plants arrived that we need to inspect we can't charge a fee where we have device registration fees for our weights and measures activities i would suspect in most counties i know in mind certainly those registration fees do not cover the cost of that program that would be an ideal goal to strive for and i think that's something where looking at
55:30 - 56:00 really scrutinizing your expenditures scrutinizing the efficiency of your weights and measures programs especially your device inspection fee program looking at things like variable frequency of inspection as maybe a way to say hey we're just spinning our wheels we're wasting a bunch of time inspecting a bunch of really really accurate devices that we maybe don't need to look at every single year because they're always with intolerance so why are we
56:00 - 56:30 spending all of our time running around looking at super accurate gas pumps or scales um and gaining some efficiency so so i think goal number one is to align your expenditures with your revenues to the greatest extent possible um i know for for my office it's a combination of again helping my board of supervisors to understand the importance of that consumer protection that the general fund the general fund does make up the difference in my department and so that's where
56:30 - 57:00 really that education and that advocacy for the importance of that program comes in so that they continue to support it um i would say you know even things like you know when we co we collaborated with the sheriff's department on opening up some pumps that they suspected had uh had uh skimmers in them and the sheriff puts out a really nice social media post about how we help them open up the gas pumps and they found these skimmers and you know the sheriff
57:00 - 57:30 has a giant following on social media our board of supervisors and their aides and their staff see that kind of thing and go oh man josh's department is is doing good work there you know and i don't even have to to my own horn and tell them myself because sheriff's doing it for me so those little kinds of strategic things where you can partner and have other people even sing your praises is awesome um when it comes to that stuff so those are a few of my thoughts on weights and measures i echo that uh josh and you know adding
57:30 - 58:00 to it a little bit is the the mission of the weights and measures program it is one of the if not the most visible program that we operate in addition to that it's a program that you can tell any board of supervisor any day they'll immediately be able to recognize it by the demand that you tell them about the sale on the gas pump they don't know what it is and you can actually actually tell them you know this program protects every single consumer if somebody has bought something today the likelihood that our program impacted
58:00 - 58:30 or the assurance that that person got what they paid for is part of this program that's how meaningful it is i think that's why the board of supervisors and the cios are always willing to contribute a general fund towards weights and measures of course there's an industry benefit and that's where the fees come in to help support the program but there is actually an individual benefit to every single person that purchases anything in your county whether it's by weight measure count and that's how you sell it it's it benefits the people so therefore the
58:30 - 59:00 taxpayer of the general public is appropriate to be allocated to those programs yeah i think truly some of these programs i think something to keep in mind too and every county is different but ag departments are typically a pretty small department and so sometimes the dollar figures that seem big to us aren't necessarily significant in the grand scheme of things like you know my whole department budgets about three million dollars out of a billion dollar county budget and so if i'm asking for you know if i have a you
59:00 - 59:30 know my my weights and measures program cost 250 000 a year in general fund or whatever it costs that seems like a whole lot of money to me for my three million dollar budget but in the grand scheme of a one billion dollar budget uh you know it's it's it's a lot of money and like i said i treat that as though i'm looking the taxpayer who paid it in the eye when i spend it but at the same time it's you know things that may seem like
59:30 - 60:00 a big ass to you may not be a big ask to other people in the grand scheme of things so all right so the next question is has to do with above the line what does it mean and how are programs put together in the budget on each side of the line maybe talk a little bit about what is that line so the art is to keep as many of your expenditures that are unreimbursed above the line as possible so so what the line is just and this is
60:00 - 60:30 probably uh uh i would encourage you we have our cakasa um youtube channel i think if you just search kakasa training or something on youtube you'll find it there's actually an unclaimed gas tax presentation on there which covers that in great detail it's a little bit old and i need to redo it with louis mendoza but i haven't gotten around to that yet the concepts are still totally valid though short story is above the line expenditures are those
60:30 - 61:00 agricultural regulatory expenditures which are eligible for unclaimed gas tax reimbursement so it's pesticides i think what is it it's pesticides plus the other 10 or 11 food and ag code program so if if something you're doing is authorized through the california food and ag code it is above the line if it's authorized through the california business of professions code or somewhere else it is below the line that's the
61:00 - 61:30 simplest way to think about it and so above the line is just kind of a term that's very unique to ag commissioners to mean uh eligible for gas tax reimbursement yeah if you look at your county's annual financial report the expenditures and revenue table you don't have all the programs one through 10 11 and i think 12. if you look at the one through 11 those are all your agricultural
61:30 - 62:00 expenditures pesticides quarantine exclusion and there is no line other than a double line below the numbers but i i always think of that as the line if your expenditure doesn't fit or your revenue does not fit on any of those categories above it goes below whether it's your contribution to uh ucce whether it's hazardous materials if you're counting those answers materials whether it's weights and measures and you know kind of the the tactical part of the budgeting or addressing when there's a shortfall of money
62:00 - 62:30 is understanding how that impact you know cutting a hundred thousand dollars from one side versus the other has a significant impact down the the timeline as you go to next year's fiscal budget when you do your annual financial were you looking at unclaimed gas tax i think the role of the deputies and commissioners and sealers is to really to observe that and understand the philosophy of how that works what does it mean above the line or below the line uh above the line is basically programs that are outlined in by legislature they're outlining the foot and echo 224 g
62:30 - 63:00 that's what above the line is anything outside of that is below the line yeah and i think really this highlights you know i'm assuming everybody on this call and members of ksapp are people who want to grow in their job and continue to become leaders in this in this industry or this this uh unique work that we do and reading the food and add code is part of your job i mean i tell my staff if you got nothing else going on you can always read the code you can always read the foodnat code the bmp code and the california code of regulations there's always i'm still finding
63:00 - 63:30 like hey i didn't know that that was a you know a law that affects me i'm still finding stuff after 20 years of doing this and so yeah 224 and 224.5 of the food and add code are a place to start asking your management staff for a copy of the annual financial statement it's like a simple two-page easy to understand document that's an overview and you can literally see the line on the piece of paper so there you go yeah excellent all right so next
63:30 - 64:00 question um besides device registration fees county ordinances for point of sale what other funding social sources are available for weights and measures are the only two dms contracts waymaster and petroleum product uh signage the only revenue sources do you know of additional revenue sources i think there's a registered service agents as well in there out there and yeah so the the the significant ones would be the point of sale ordinances and the device
64:00 - 64:30 registration fees um a number of counties have partnered with their district attorney's offices on large cases and there can be some pretty significant settlements out of those um i have not seen very many settlements where the ag department directly gets a massive financial windfall um a lot of those settlements go into our qc trust funds that cacasa maintains along with the
64:30 - 65:00 district attorney's association and so that's a great source if you need training and equipment to do price verification work um you know that's that's a little bit of something to talk to your your your commissioners and deputies and assistants about is there's a great source of revenue it's a lot of money sitting there waiting to be used and we really need to get that money going more we've we've applied for some it's basically a really simple grant application process i think you
65:00 - 65:30 submit to la county and then there's a committee that reviews those applications and so you can get you know within reason some pretty good financial support for equipment and training relative to price verification program um other than like i said fines i'm not sure if there's a whole lot of other device device related revenue that you can kind of you know in an entrepreneurial sense go find um
65:30 - 66:00 um you know that that's set in the business and professions code it's in state law it's capped you know like i said the two things you can really do are make sure your county is collecting the full amount allowed by the law so if if you're collecting less than mouth that may be a political decision from your board of supervisors to be more business friendly but if they're also pressuring you because they want to cut your programs while they're
66:00 - 66:30 also not allowing you to max out your revenue you really need to communicate with them about that the other one like i said is just cutting your expenses and that's the that's the thing you have the most control over if you can become more efficient in your program and cut your expenses so they more more closely align with your revenues that's the thing you probably have the most control over with your weights and measures budget i agree i think you you covered that i mean it that one is a lot i feel like weights and measures is more
66:30 - 67:00 limiting when it comes to you know how to maneuver the program when funding changes come along uh next question are hemp and marijuana classified as below the line or above the line were this changing the feds ever change marijuana as a schedule one narcotic one is and one isn't so so it's convoluted same species of plant one has thc one doesn't um hemp is an above the line crop
67:00 - 67:30 so hemp is agricultural any money you spend on hemp goes above the line and is subject to ugt reimbursement cannabis is uh not above the line it is below the line and it is not eligible for gas tax reimbursement um there have been some instances very recently where at least one county shifted some resources from above the line programs
67:30 - 68:00 to cannabis and actually didn't meet their maintenance of effort and lost a significant amount of gas tax revenue because they their county made that decision to reallocate the resources to cannabis which was a below the line activity so that that can actually have some big consequences that's a big deal and um yeah it's it's again where's the cannabis law it's in the business of professions code where's the hemp law it's in the food and ag code so just think of it in those terms and that's your answer
68:00 - 68:30 excellent very good answer next question that i have here who are the key stakeholders in budget process great question everybody everybody in your county um so no so you start with your own department and really identifying your needs and your goals both for this year and for kind of you know i operate in that five year window where i'm looking at this year really closely and then i'm also kind of keeping the wheels in motion on things i want to
68:30 - 69:00 accomplish in the next five or six years i don't look out too much past that um so obviously your own department and speaking with you know the your staff about you know what what we need to accomplish as a department and then at least again speaking for placer county i have a fiscal analyst in my ceo's office who is my most immediate point of contact her boss is a deputy ceo who i also work really closely with and communicate with and that you know they're kind of the gatekeepers
69:00 - 69:30 if it's a really big thing i i as an act commissioner i'm an appointed department head i get to meet with the county ceo once a month and really big priorities i'll also share with him again i want him to catch that vision and go man the ag department's doing some cool work and i really like that so that when his staff i'm kind of managing the ceo's office both upwards and downwards so i want that my analyst to be bringing stuff up and saying hey josh is doing cool work and i and we should support it and i want the ceo himself to bring
69:30 - 70:00 stuff down to her and so they meet in the middle and they're all in agreement by the time it actually gets fleshed out and then other departments you know if you can even get other department heads to recognize the importance of what you do because sometimes it is a little bit like uh my library director likes to call it the hunger games where all the different departments are fighting over the general fund and stuff and so you know this department or that department will think they're the only game in town and really you know
70:00 - 70:30 i'm i'm doing i'm doing the most important work and whatever you're doing really doesn't matter compared to what i'm doing that's always a factor to play in and so really nobody else is going to advocate for you like you are um again the board of supervisors ultimately makes that decision but like in my county the ceo is really the gatekeeper for the budget there's also really specific fiscal management staff within my ceo's office
70:30 - 71:00 my my personal analyst that works with me is more general looks at programs as well as the budget where there's a fiscal kind of fiscal wonks that are just number crunchers and they're good good folks to keep informed of like things like hey sb1 passed here's what it means to me um so um other than that you know really the public we have an agricultural advisory committee we have uh farm bureau we have these different industry organizations that
71:00 - 71:30 can also advocate on your behalf and you can you kind of be got to be careful i know board members don't like it when you feel like you've sick the public on them you know i'm an important i'm an at will appointed department head if my board gets mad at me every day is probation for me for my whole career and so you know if i'm pulling stunts where i'm embarrassing them or feeling like i'm sicking the public on them and making their lives miserable i'm not going to be very long in my job but at the same time there's a really
71:30 - 72:00 effective healthy way that you can help them to tell your story for you you know hey why is it important to support pest detection well because if we get the asian citrus cylinder here's how it's going to affect my manner in industry and my board loves my mandarin industry and so they wouldn't dare do anything that would jeopardize it so you can have your farmers kind of advocate for you in that sense yeah uh in uh to add a little bit to that there is a very important component to
72:00 - 72:30 your budget which is fees and as we said there are certain programs that have state caps on the fee you can recuperate you should never be recuperating more than it's costing you so you should always do a cost study see if your fees are where they need to be but there are a lot of programs that don't have fees and the industry wants them so you can actually use the advocacy of industry to come to you and make an official request to say hey we would like for you to walk our peaky fields we know we can train our staff and certify them but we would like you the department to do it all you have to do is work with the
72:30 - 73:00 board work with the cio see if they're open to say can we establish a full cost recovery fee that the industry agrees with so we can conduct the work that the industry wants us to co-work which actually contributes to the mission of the act department so you can work with industry but you do have to be very careful as josh said you don't want the industry sending a letter to the board or to the ceo or they'll send it to the board saying you know the ad commissioner told us that you should approve this program or this fee it doesn't work like that but they can definitely make a request
73:00 - 73:30 if they want you to do something that is in line with your department and i've seen many programs in different counties actually where you are truly providing a service to industry and the industry wants you to continue providing that service whether it's a special inspection protocol for something they're shipping that they're required to have an inspection we have the qualification however we don't have the financial means and they're willing to take on that cost to to make it work so that that could be an advocate for funding elements
73:30 - 74:00 uh let's see here can we cover that i cover that i think we covered everything any additional questions you got a question that came in through chat here uh can the cac build dpr for cannabis work in theory thank you alex yeah so that's a great question and dpr
74:00 - 74:30 does have dedicated funding for cannabis activities and so uh a good portion of that is formulaic so there's x dollars allocated based i think just on the population of the county there's some dollars allocated per um per operator id that you issue and then there's various dollar per hour rates in reimbursement for various activities like if you're
74:30 - 75:00 doing grower education and outreach on pesticide laws and rigs to cannabis producers you can build that at a fixed hourly rate back to dpr so they do have i think a million plus dollars a year funding to reimburse county ag commissioners for cannabis related pesticide use enforcement and education um so yeah great question all right any other questions
75:00 - 75:30 excellent josh i i have a painful question because we probably will be facing that if you want to cut costs how do you document or monitor and evaluate that process because you don't want to create more harm you know you really want to how would you go about cutting a cost carefully without involving you know a legal dispute from hr i mean what is your some of the things you look at before you decide to pull the trigger on something
75:30 - 76:00 so just in general if you're saying hey there's a budget cut mandated or something like that yeah yeah or i mean or how do you when you say okay i gotta improve my my budget i'm gonna cut some costs i mean do you get feedback from people where do you think there's waste do you get the analysts i mean what would be some strategies so that you could map it out and then measure if it's successful or or preempt a risk for example yeah
76:00 - 76:30 well i think you know i think jose could probably chime in on this as well i hope but you got to think both what's you know what's the time frame is this a one year hiccup or is this like a long term where for the next 10 years we're going to be dealing with a different way of doing business and i think that's one of the things um you know when i look back to the economic downturn that kind of started in 2008 went through probably 2011 or 12 when we saw cdfa's budget decimated
76:30 - 77:00 counties overall were just struggling mightily um you know i think we're in a time that's kind of the most difficult time since that kind of 2010 11 time period um you know so i've gone through it once i think a lot of counties are seeing it again at this point um i'll speak to that previous time part of it was the difference between again the ag department versus the county as a whole and what we saw back in that 2008
77:00 - 77:30 to 2011 or 12 window was all of the agricultural activity and the agricultural revenues and the agricultural fees none of that stuff went down gas tax didn't go down none of that stuff did but county general fund got thrashed because property taxes which are the number one source generally of general fund revenue so the county's biggest source of revenue is typically property taxes and the housing bubble bursting just
77:30 - 78:00 decimated property tax base and so it was kind of that advocacy for balancing the fact that my little department was still in good shape while the county as a whole was was being wiped out and or significantly impacted i should say and kind of striking a balance between those two things first and foremost so that's kind of at one very strategic level working with with your management on the
78:00 - 78:30 other hand looking at a very close immediate level at what can i cut you know over time you know there's that fat that you can trim right off the bat without long-term consequences for the most part like overtime so like hey we're not going to prove any more over time there's a way to pump the brakes really easily again looking at vehicle mileage and saying hey can we you know do things to reduce vehicle mileage right off the bat you know there's there's those kinds of things hey
78:30 - 79:00 what items did we have approved purchase if i got two pickup trucks that are fixed asset requests that i have approved and i have old pickup trucks that i can milk for another year and keep them running that's 60 grand i can not spend right now just looking at all those components so any of your discretionary items you're going to purchase over time vehicle mileage just there there's you know the difference between pumping the brakes and slamming the brakes on i think is kind of the way i think about
79:00 - 79:30 it and so the first thing i do is pump the brakes while i also communicate my department situation versus the county so while acknowledging the county's overall decision again maintenance of effort is a big thing that you again need to reiterate the consequences for maintenance of effort hey don't put me in that downward financial spiral because we cut which leads to a reduction which leads to a cut which leads to a reduction and you can just circle that drain if you get into that
79:30 - 80:00 bad point and then there's the the next step would be you know the people the people are the the expensive thing and the extra help the seasonal staff that you know unfortunately are kind of low on the lowest on the totem pole because i think we're all for the most part unionized workforces they have to go and then the last thing you want to do is lay off permanent staff i you know in addition to deeply caring about each of my staff as a person i also feel like a senior or
80:00 - 80:30 a level three inspector it typically takes four years to build a level three inspector or a senior inspector and that's about a four hundred thousand dollar investment you know just in strictly dollars and cents terms i've invested four years in building that inspector and to lose a senior inspector is a in addition to just caring about that person and not wanting to you know harm them financially and career-wise i also don't want that
80:30 - 81:00 investment walking out the door and really that that's kind of the way i i view that as well so and i got some of my staff on the phone so i hope they don't take offense to them yeah it's not it's not a comfortable question but i appreciate it josh yeah thank you i think as we started with the with the presentation we have to be monitoring the horizon we are failing if we don't if you have to slam on the brakes
81:00 - 81:30 and it's because suddenly a long ongoing contract dried out maybe we were not doing our job as good as we could you have to be monitoring that horizon as soon as you get thing cleaning and we just got one hulk covey taxes we talked about it anybody here who doesn't he didn't get that flag that hey we need to be very careful right now do not bring in permanent positions i will share that in my department i had when we did the budget i had approved additional positions we did not hire those positions because
81:30 - 82:00 the last thing we want to do is bring on permanent staff invest the money in training then having them move from wherever they move going through all this to even you know if it does if the economy as we look at next year's budget and the following year if it does start you know turning around it's going to be a significant a much more costly endeavor to the department and not just in terms of dollar of dollars it's in terms of you know the reputation to the department that you know what we do here for people with people
82:00 - 82:30 take advantage of salary savings if you have vacancies that is one of the biggest places to save money salary savings if you haven't heard that term become familiar with that term that is the easiest way to save real tangible dollars because you know what then you know some people may not agree but to me paper is cheap i'm never going to balance my budget by cutting the use of paper or pencils yeah it'll help but i'm not going to balance my budget
82:30 - 83:00 by managing the the amount of paper and pencils we purchase or don't purchase big purchases of big event in investments in people and capital purchases if you're going to have a new vehicle if it's already fully depreciated if it's not ideal but it's not on sale work with your fleet department and say hey you know what is there a way that we can keep the heavy capacity truck for two more years um maybe we don't need to move to the larger nicer building that's gonna increase our
83:00 - 83:30 facility because remember those are fixed costs i don't get a say so once i make that move that's a fixed cost when we build when i build the budget they actually send me the bill upfront and say make sure you include this amount of your budget for the facility those are non-negotiable so there are very few other than uh really you know talking about lane layouts there's very few areas where we can actually reduce our our budget we we're in the business of people that's
83:30 - 84:00 not as we said we've said multiple times our biggest cost is people so if your budget suddenly gets cut by downtown by 25 most likely that's gonna cut into the meat or the bone yeah any any other thoughts on that josh no they thank you that was that was great jose thank you yeah all right well we are at almost at 4 30. um if there is there any other questions
84:00 - 84:30 that i might have missed there if i don't hear any more then i think we're going to wrap it up again i did want to thank you josh for spending the time for actually a lot of insight um definitely a big takeaway the last the philosophy and the tactical elements of your budget kung fu i think we can definitely use that out it's we kind of know that it happens but we don't get an opportunity to hear it so it is very refreshing
84:30 - 85:00 to hear you say you know how you go about how you troubleshoot these situations how you manage you know the horizon the changes the challenges and then even the technical stuff so thank you for taking the time uh to everybody in the call we will get the recording and we will post it in our website on the k-sub website will be available if you ever want to come back and revisit uh you know the presentation and the q a which i think it's a lot of very good information josh any any last words no thank you all and uh um really appreciate everything
85:00 - 85:30 that case app does and uh it was a pretty non-functional organization when i first started out and it's awesome to see how how uh so many folks have really stepped up the plate and showed leadership and really turned this turn this organization into something fantastic and a huge resource so really appreciate all of you thank you all right well in that case uh again enjoy the rest of your day and the rest of your week have a
85:30 - 86:00 good one thank you thank you both bye you