Santa Barbara County Supervisors approved a $1.1 billion dollar budget for the new fiscal year which doesn’t call for any layoffs, and does include an estimated six million dollars in revenue from new county marijuana taxes.
The budget includes an estimated 85 new full-time jobs, most of which are tied to the ramping-up of staff needed for the new County jail being built in Santa Maria.
The County spent more than six million dollars in reserves for efforts to deal with the Thomas Fire and Montecito debris flow. But, officials got good news, because the governor wants to give the county a one time contribution of $4.4 million dollars to help with an anticipated dip in property tax revenue due to the disasters.
There was debate was over how much money should be factored into the budget from the new marijuana taxes. County Supervisor Janet Wolf voted against the budget plan because she felt it wasn’t prudent to try to guess how much might be raised through the additional taxes.
