In advance of the May 15 Budget Revision, CSAC sent Governor
Gavin Newsom strategic budget requests aligned to key
County priorities this week. The May revise is a chance for the
Governor to update his January proposal with current revenue
and caseload projections. Between the $26 billion provided to the
State through the American Rescue Plan and an unprecedented $25.3
billion projected budget surplus, California and Governor Newsom
are faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make serious
investments that will move the state beyond recovery and ensure
strong foundations for the future.
CSAC’s Budget Priority letter includes a host of one-time and
ongoing investments in critical infrastructure and programs. In
alignment with CSAC’s key advocacy priorities, the budget request
letter includes an $8 Billion one-time investment for Broadband
Infrastructure and Digital Literacy programs.
One of the highlights of CSAC’s Virtual Legislative Conference
this week was a general session conversation with featured guest
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla. He addressed the membership and
entertained a few questions from CSAC President and Sonoma County
Supervisor James Gore and CSAC Executive Director Graham Knaus.
Broadband, one of CSAC’s top advocacy priorities, was a topic
covered both in Senator Padilla’s address and the conversation
with President Gore and Graham Knaus. The Senator shared his
belief that the state “is uniquely positioned to leverage federal
funding, along with state and local dollars, to extend the
broadband network” to underserved areas of the state.
The Employee Relations policy area falls under the jurisdiction
of the Government Finance and Operations (GFO) Policy Committee
and is responsible for all issues related to public employment
and retirement. Specific issues areas are pension benefits and
pension system administration; labor relations; issues regarding
county negotiations with employees; workers’ compensation; and
other risk management issues facing public employers.
The CSAC Communications Department knows the power of a good
story— how words come together to paint a picture, capture an
emotion, or drive the reader to action. We also know the power of
using video, images, and audio to tell an even more engaging
story. Over the past several years, we’ve doubled down on our
in-house video and graphics capabilities for just that reason.
Recently, we’ve been asking Counties to share their COVID-19
success stories with us so we can promote the excellent work
that’s happening around the state. You’ve read stories
from Placer County about its pandemic grant program
distributing CARES grant dollars within the community and
from Marin County about the responsible team allocating
and distributing PPE and medical supplies through their system.
Yet, some stories can’t be as efficiently or
evocatively conveyed in words alone. Recently, Santa
Barbara County approached us with an excellent video about their
county-wide COVID-19 response efforts. So this week, instead of a
more traditional narrative blog, we invite to you take a look
at Santa Barbara
County’s COVID-19 video blog, or Vlog. It’s about 10 minutes
long and time well spent.
