Christmas arrived early for the County of San Diego.
For the second time this year, the County earned an upgrade to its credit rating. The achievement was not easy or quick. But I’ll tell you the secret; run government like a business. That is, balance your books, pay your bills, borrow wisely, and provide a good service.
That’s what government should do and that is what San Diego County has made happen. We just passed a $4.7 billion common sense-balanced budget. Our budget requires taxes to carry out important services. At the County of San Diego, constituent services are a huge business, and we make every effort to deliver those services to our residents.
It wasn’t always so. When I was first elected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, the County was on the brink of bankruptcy. It was not the well-run company of topnotch employees it is today, and worse still, the community was suffering from a painful recession.
But thankfully, my colleagues and I on the Board of Supervisors introduced reform, accountability and high standards that ultimately restored our fiscal health.
A balanced county budget and well-managed money means better services to you in county parks, libraries, roads, health inspections, managed open space, environmental protection, animals services, courts, protection by the district attorney, social services and more.
It’s as simple as that. When funds are squandered, services suffer. No different than your budget at home. You must pay your bills on time and have money left over to do the things you need to do.
One major change that has helped us to operate more efficiently for less cost: competitive bidding for county services. We were topheavy with more employees than jobs and we’ve managed to reduce all of that unnecessary waste of taxpayer money.
Today, the County of San Diego is recognized by Governing magazine as the “best-run county in California” and the third best-managed county in the nation.
And just this month, Standard & Poor’s ratings services announced that the County’s underlying credit rating was raised from AA to AA+. They also upgraded the County for its outstanding long-term debt from AA- to AA. This upgrade included our pension obligation bonds and certificates of participation, used to fund a variety of capital projects.
Improved credit ratings help save taxpayer money by reducing the costs to the County when issuing future debt instruments. No other county in the state of California is rated higher by Standard and Poor’s.
In June of this year, another credit rating company – Fitch Ratings – upgraded the County’s rating to AA+. At that same time, the County of San Diego was also honored with the Golden Watchdog Award from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association for our retirees’ health benefits proposal.
In December 2006, Supervisor Dianne Jacob and I submitted a proposal to help solve the retiree health care cost problem before it became an albatross for the county taxpayers. I’m happy to report we reached a good compromise on that situation in July.
Government must be protective of taxpayers’ money “” even when it’s unpopular with certain special interest groups demanding more. Even still, some people did not want the system to change.
Yet, I do not believe they realized at the time what could have happened to the County if we had not adopted this new way of doing the taxpayers’ business. When I was first elected county supervisor, I knew that without change, we could have faced the same predicament that the City of San Diego is now facing.
Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, and I can assure our county residents that it won’t as long as this board serves the County. We are business-minded elected officials, and we do not make promises we cannot keep.
Supervisor Slater-Price represents the County of San Diego’s Third District, which includes Pacific Beach, La Jolla, and Del Mar. Visit her website at www.sdcounty.ca.gov/bos3.