Riverside county officials seek feedback on $10 billion budget amid state and federal funding challenges

Riverside County officials presented a $10 billion budget at a community workshop in Palm Desert last week, warning of financial pressures from potential state and federal funding cuts.

County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen said the county is facing rising costs and flattening revenues, making it difficult to predict the local economic future of a county with 2.5 million residents across 7,300 square miles.

“It’s hard to look ahead when we don’t know how this week is going to end or the next month is going to end,” Van Wagenen said.

The budget includes $8.6 billion in fixed funding required by law and $1.4 billion in discretionary funds for the Board of Supervisors to allocate.

Supervisor V. Manuel Perez told residents, “We’re facing budget deficits at the federal and state level that we haven’t seen in years.”

Perez noted the county must act as a safety net for communities let down by cut backs at different levels of government, while simultaneously continuing to improve and invest in every part of a county that’s growing in population.

“The last 30 years, we doubled in size. Between 2010 and 2020, more people moved to Riverside County than any other county in the state. Two times in the last five years, more people moved here than anywhere else in the country,” Van Wagenen said.

With the growth comes economic activity, but also more need for housing and services.

More than two dozen residents spoke at the meeting, and almost all of them either identified affordable housing as their primary concern, or said that affordable housing would improve root causes related to their primary concern.

Take animal welfare, for example. Meredith Bettencourt, a volunteer at the Coachella Valley Animal Center, argued that housing discrimination is directly fueling the county’s pet euthanasia rates. When developers build “no-pet” complexes or charge exorbitant “pet rent,” families are forced to relinquish their animals.

“There’s nothing sadder than to see kids come into the campus and have to relinquish their pets,” Betancourt said. “I think it’s time for more fair housing”.

Even when housing is built, residents are skeptical. One speaker, Lorraine, dismissed new developments as “500-to-1,000-square-foot boxes,” arguing that workers deserve actual homes, “where we could all grow our garden and children can freely run and play.”

Perez said affordable housing is his number one priority, noting that the fourth district outpaces other parts of the county when it comes to affordable housing.

The workshop also highlighted needs from the county’s “micro-businesses”—family childcare providers. Rosa, representing Spanish-speaking providers, noted that 85% of children in the county lack access to quality care.

“Without childcare, there is no economy,” Perez agreed, promising to help direct more funding to locally owned micro-businesses, rather than large corporate childcare centers.

Residents of unincorporated areas of the county from Mecca and Thousand Palms asked for better infrastructure and code enforcement, especially as it related to short-term rentals with noise complaints.

Perez concluded the meeting saying he had “a lot of homework to do.”

“Your realities are our realities,” Perez said. “It’s hard to sleep at night when I see kids living the way they do.”

The county received 25,000 survey responses from residents about the budget, and has held several in-person meetings to narrow down priorities.

County staff will condense the information and present it to the Board of Supervisors at its May 12 meeting. The survey data and draft budget will eventually be posted online, before the final budget is adopted before the end of June.

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