Facing a near $18 million budget deficit in Fiscal Year 2027, Stanislaus County’s Community Services Agency – which oversees a variety of social programs – is initiating a partial hiring freeze, cuts to services, and the elimination of 71 vacant job posts, with potential cuts to 67 full-time positions.
CSA – which manages such programs as Child Welfare Services, Adult Protective Services, CalFresh, CalWORKS, Medi-Cal, in-home supportive services, and housing – has a budget of more than $187 million dollars with nearly 1,000 employees.
In early 2025, the county’s Chief Executive Office requested that CSA validate the source of its accumulated fund balance in the Program Services and Support budget to ensure that the county’s general fund hadn’t been over-recognized in prior fiscal years, according to a staff report. The available fund balance as of July 1, 2024, was nearly $32.9 million, and had grown significantly since Fiscal Year 2020, However, due to staff and leadership turnover over the past decade, historical and institutional knowledge and fiscal expertise in the department were lost, and standard accounting reconciliations had not been performed in many of the fiscal years under review…