Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...As other counties across California cut services and shrink expenditures, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a $6.7 billion budget this week – a $613 million increase over the previous year.
Thanks to a series of taxpayer-funded ballot measures, Alameda County was able to avoid cuts while also closing a $185 million budget gap.
“I will tell you that every penny of it is needed by our community,” said Board President David Haubert. “We are battling the cuts of H.R. 1 and we’re grateful that we have the support of the voters. You could say we were ahead of our curve compared to other counties.”
Here are five things to know about Alameda County’s budget:
1. Measure W became a lifeline
In 2020, voters approved Measure W, a general sales tax, to raise approximately $170 million per year for housing and homelessness services. Given the breadth of state and federal cuts to safety net services, the Board of Supervisors chose to use 20% of Measure W’s funds ($34 million) to support the county’s safety net, predominantly for food assistance and senior services.
“We’re tackling food insecurity and supporting the up to 40,000 residents who are subject to work requirements and at risk of losing their federal benefits,” Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas said. “We’re protecting our most vulnerable residents.”
2. Alameda Health System avoids layoffs, for now
The county’s public health network – serving 286,000 people and two-thirds of the county’s low-income population – had proposed layoffs of nearly 400 hospital workers in early 2026 to counteract federal cuts to Medicaid.
Instead, the supervisors increased the county’s line of credit to $100 million for Alameda Health System, but it didn’t stop there. An ad hoc committee negotiated the number of at-risk employees down to 92 employees, and used an additional $19.3 million in one-time funding to avoid the rest of the layoffs, fund an efficiency study and extend a behavioral health program.
“Our projections show that we’re going to use the entirety of the additional space that was granted by virtue of the work of the county administrator,” Alameda Health System CEO James Jackson said at a budget meeting on Tuesday, “We still intend to change our cost structure, but we intend to do it with the runway that this would provide.”
3. Despite budget resiliency, cuts are coming
Despite the Board of Supervisors’ optimistic “no layoffs” approach to this year’s budget, county leadership warned of the difficult financial outlook in coming years, as state and federal aid make up 60% of Alameda County’s revenue.
With looming Medicaid cuts and the state clawing back money for public assistance programs, local governments are facing more pressure to take up the responsibility to support low-income and uninsured residents.
“We’re going to have to make tougher decisions at some point – we can’t keep saying yes to everything,” said Supervisor Elisa Marquez.
4. Immigrants not left behind
Within the $6.7 billion budget, the supervisors set aside $450,000 to establish an Office of Immigrants and Refugee services to combat deportation and immigration enforcement efforts by the Trump administration,
In total, the county has appropriated $7.5 million for community programs to assist immigrants and refugees, including a legal office,
“The federal administration is really harming our most vulnerable communities,” Fortunato Bas said. “It is visible with the attacks on immigrants, and less visible with the stripping away of healthcare and food assistance.”
5. ‘E’ stands for efficiency
Alameda County needs to become more efficient if it is going combat rolling cuts to Medicaid and state assistance programs, Supervisor Haubert said.
That action is already beginning as county agencies and departments have identified 125 initiatives that county can take to save an estimated $114 million, according to budget documents. These strategies include quicker processing turnarounds for contracts with behavioral health organizations and job recruitment, preventative infrastructure maintenance and faster deliveries of social services.
“Part of our budget is to work with AHS to find additional operational efficiencies, and I intend to bring the same to our county departments over the next year,” Haubert said. “We have to get better. Every organization should strive for efficiency.”