SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—Social workers facing imminent layoffs have been worried for weeks leading up to Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
“It’s 20% of our entire workforce. I mean social services is the county. It is what we do,” said 5th District Santa Barbara County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino.
Despite the growing deficit Santa Barbara County’s Department of Social Services is facing, employees will be keeping their jobs for now.
“Social services is the foundation for a healthy community. We cannot expect a healthy outcome for everybody when we're not meeting the basic needs,” said Cheyenne Rosson from Child Welfare Services.
The department identified a structural deficit of $7.4 million in local funds in the fiscal year 2025 to 2026 budget.
Severe job cuts were proposed to reduce expenses, but Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors decided to only cut 55 positions that are currently vacant. “Prevention is a huge part of why I do this job. If we can prevent kids from being abused, then we will save money in the long term in foster care funds,” said Rosson.
As for the roughly 70 filled positions, the Board of Supervisors is considering funding them with money from the general fund.
But this would only solve the problem for a year. A regional director for the union representing county social workers says eliminating vacant positions will make already difficult workloads even tougher. “Our social workers and eligibility workers are operating at a at max capacity because of the low staffing levels. So that is something that we still want to continue to work with the county on. But we're very happy that no filled positions are going to have to be eliminated,” said Sieu Local 721 Regional Director Carson Acosta.
The board will revisit this issue on November 18th.
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