Some people spend summer catching up on great books.

But my reading list has been a little different lately.

Between feedings, diapers, and sleepless nights with my newborn, I’ve found myself consuming a lot of fiction — not novels, unfortunately, but wild claims about the County of San Diego.

You may have seen them: screeds insisting that modernizing the County’s reserves policy was reckless, that the freed-up funding all went to “bonuses,” and that pretty much everything we do to wake up County government is secretly sinister.

Most of them are not very nice to me. That’s okay. I’m used to catching attitude from my 6-year-old girl.

But efforts to undermine faith in local government affect all of us. So let’s separate fact from fiction.

There are four main fictions floating around, but I am not going to make you read the whole library in one sitting.

Today is Part 1: the County reserves and budget.

Fiction 1: Reserve reform is “reckless.”

Fact: Reserve reform fixed an outdated policy that was excessively hoarding money that should have been used to provide services to you, the public.

The County did not drain reserves. We did not use reserves to balance this year’s budget. And we are still millions of dollars above the County’s required emergency savings minimum.

Here is what changed:

San Diego County now follows best practices used by counties and cities across America, which say reserves should cover two months of regular operating costs — the bills we cannot skip in an emergency.

The County’s old policy made unrealistic assumptions, like pretending major construction projects, like a new park, would continue even during a crisis.

If you lost your job, you wouldn’t stick with your plan of building a pool in your backyard; you’d put that on hold and use your savings to pay bills and feed your family. Obviously, the County should also pause non-essential expenses in a time of financial strain. 

But the old policy forced the County to hoard nearly $400 million more than a reasonable reserve minimum requires.

So we fixed all that:

• We kept the required safety cushion and put most of that above-minimum money into a separate bucket with strict spending safeguards.

• We made sure that the budget we just passed still adds more than $16 million above the required reserve minimum in our emergency fund. 

• We installed guardrails to ensure that the free-up funding cannot all be spent at once: No more than 25% can be used in one year. (And after the first two years of allocations, nearly $191 million remains available for the final two years of Trump’s presidency.)

As Vice Chair Montgomery Steppe said, the County is not a hedge fund. Our purpose is not to park taxpayer dollars in an investment account and pat ourselves on the back about having a bigger fund balance.

We are supposed to keep a responsible emergency cushion and use the rest of our public dollars to invest in core services and protect the public.

That is not reckless.

Reckless would be forcing money above the emergency cushion to sit untouched while Trump cuts health care, food assistance, housing, and other services San Diegans rely on.

Reckless would be letting the roof leak during a storm because you like bragging about your savings account.

Which brings us to the next fiction: what this freed-up funding actually supported.

Fiction 2: The freed-up funding went to “bonuses.”

Fact: The one-time retention payment was just 3.7% of the total freed-up funding, and more than 92% of the money allocated so far has gone to County services and dealing with the fallout of Trump’s massive H.R. 1 budget cuts.

If we want families to get help when they call, seniors to get services, roads to be maintained, public health threats to be addressed, and emergency response to work, we need good people to stay in public service.

Critics want to make this about a one-time $1,000 retention payment to County workers: sheriff’s deputies, social workers, nurses, eligibility workers, public health staff, emergency responders, road crews, and others doing hard jobs in one of the most expensive regions in the country.

The full Board — Democrats and Republicans — approved these contracts. And I will never apologize for valuing the people who keep County government running.

But scale matters.

The workforce payment was $14.2 million — just 3.7% of $381.6 million in total freed-up funding.

And of the freed-up funding allocated so far, more than 92% has gone to services and urgent public needs.

So what have the former reserves funded so far?

• $43.7 million for safety-net services to protect health care, food assistance, and basic support for families as federal cuts hit our region.

• $34 million to build and acquire affordable housing.

• $28.8 million to respond to the Tijuana River Valley sewage crisis, including $8.8 million for pipe extension, health studies, and air-quality monitoring.

• $23.7 million to respond to Trump’s H.R. 1 cuts and new red tape that could make people lose health care or food assistance.

• $23 million to keep critical County systems and infrastructure working.

• Nearly $13 million to help renters and vulnerable residents stay housed, such as $3.6 million for rental assistance.

• $4.8 million to help seniors, families, and people facing hunger, including $1.8 million for senior nutrition, $1 million for the San Diego Food Bank, $1 million for Feeding San Diego, and $1 million for food distribution and insecurity.

• $5.7 million to help vulnerable residents, including $2 million to help eligible seniors and people with disabilities get federal benefits, and $1.5 million for domestic violence services through Casa Mariposa.

That is the real story: reserve reform helped keep San Diegans housed, fed, safe, healthy, served, and protected while Washington creates chaos.

That is what a responsible County government does.

And that is only Part 1 of my strange summer reading report.

Next time, we’ll get into the Charter reform rabbit hole — watchdogs, term limits, and why some people seem very offended by the idea of letting voters decide.