County to state: Checks not in mail

In a symbolic show of defiant protest over the state's deepening budget impasse, Colusa County will not send any money to Sacramento for at least the next 30 days.

The Colusa Board of Supervisors on Tuesday instructed employees to stop all payments from the county to the state.

"Hold all checks going to the state, whatever the amount," Supervisor Kim Dolbow-Vann told the assembled department heads.

An estimate of the cost-saving maneuver was not immediately available.

The decision came during an emergency discussion at Tuesday's board meeting.

On Monday, board Chairman Gary Evans directed county staff to implement an across-the-board spending freeze. That action followed an announcement that state payments to social, welfare and road programs will be delayed starting next week.

The county's freeze thawed slightly Tuesday.

"Don't stop doing what you have to do to get the job done," Evans said. "But only use what you absolutely need to function."

Several counties are considering a coordinated effort to suspend all types of funding submitted to the state, Dolbow-Vann said.

County administrators were also instructed to draft revised department budgets that account for revenue and spending through June 30 and another through the end of October.

"Assuming the state doesn't pass a budget, we need to know what each department is now and where you're going to be," Supervisor Mark Marshall explained.

He said the county has enough cash to function without the state for a little more than three months.

"But, by the end of April, that's it, we're out of money," Marshall said.

Several departments, including Health and Human Services and Behavioral Health, said they would have to consider the possibility of layoffs.

Officials were openly angry at the state Legislature's inability to solve the budget crisis.

"The county was doing just fine," Dolbow-Vann said. "Then they took our Williamson Act money, which is about $840,000 this year, and now we're being held hostage while they work out their issues."

Marshall called the state "the whole problem."

"They keep mandating us to provide services and, at the same time, keep cutting our funding for those services," he said.

"They keep saying: do more with nothing," Dolbow-Vann added.