Santa Clara County eliminates 365 jobs amid Trump-induced budget challenges

While the county routinely opens its budget mid-year to make revisions, it’s been years since the county made changes of this magnitude, with most of the eliminated positions coming from health care.

The nearly $200 million in budget reductions, which were approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors at a Feb. 10 meeting, come just months after county voters approved a stopgap sales tax measure to help fill some of the anticipated losses. The county estimates roughly $1 billion in lost federal revenues annually as a result of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill that was signed into law last year.

The 365 positions — all of which are vacant except for 60 jobs — includes 231 positions from the Santa Clara Valley Healthcare System, 45 positions from the Behavioral Health Services Department, 26 positions from Custody Health, 10 positions from the Public Defender’s Office and 35 positions from the Department of Tax and Collections. Employees in the 60 filled positions that are being eliminated will be moved to another vacant job.

The county had already faced several tough budget cycles in recent years due to slow property tax revenue growth and ballooning labor costs before the recent cuts to the federal Medicaid program further stressed the county’s coffers.

County Executive James Williams said that given the elimination of vacant positions in prior years, along with the other revenue strategies they’ve already pursued, “the broader flexibility for the county organization (has) become narrower and narrower.”

“It is going to be a challenge moving forward,” he said. “Maintaining the legally required balanced budget is harder with each successive cycle of reductions and the significant uncertainty that we have.”

Even with the sales tax measure, which will generate $330 million annually, the county is projecting a $470 million deficit for the upcoming fiscal year that begins on July 1. The reduction’s made last week will help fill roughly $200 million of that gap. The county is anticipating the deficit will continue growing as a result of cuts to federal revenues, with the losses causing $500 million in impacts during the 2027-28 fiscal year.

“These are not routine budget adjustments,” Board President Otto Lee said in a statement. “They are a direct response to devastating federal cuts that have defunded public health care and basic needs programs that our residents rely on every day. The Board is acting now to protect lifesaving services and ensure that we can continue to serve as a safety net for our most vulnerable neighbors.”

Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said at the meeting that while county decisions in prior years have softened the financial blow, she doesn’t think the Board has all the detailed information needed to make the cuts that are still ahead.

“We’re all talking about making difficult decisions We haven’t actually been put to the test honestly yet in a way we can say we’re going to live with cutting or reducing something that is of great value because we need to do other things,” she said. “I think in order to do that we really have to be so clear about what the impacts are.”