The County of San Diego (County) is preparing for a difficult fiscal year largely caused by significant federal funding reductions. Particularly as the County’s upcoming budget cycle approaches and decisions must be made, maintaining public trust requires demonstrating that every reasonable efficiency, consolidation, and cost-saving opportunity is pursued before any service reductions are considered.

San Diego County is at a critical inflection point in the evolution of our safety net health systems. Federal changes under H.R. 1, coupled with related State implementation actions beginning in 2026, are expected to increase healthcare coverage loss and administrative barriers for residents enrolled in Medi-Cal and other public programs.

The Tijuana River Valley (TJRV) and surrounding South Bay communities continue to experience severe impacts from untreated sewage, urban runoff, and toxic airborne emissions, resulting in recurring contamination of coastal waters and nearby neighborhoods. These conditions continue to pose significant risks to public health, environmental resources, and economic activity across affected cities and unincorporated communities.

The County of San Diego (County) is preparing for a difficult fiscal year driven largely by significant reductions in federal funding. As the County approaches the upcoming budget cycle, maintaining public trust requires demonstrating that every reasonable efficiency, consolidation, and cost-saving measure has been identified and pursued before any service reductions are considered.

San Diego County Fire (County Fire) delivers around-the-clock fire protection and emergency services across 1.5 million acres, operating twenty-two fire stations in one of the most fire-prone regions in California.

Mounting energy bills puts San Diego working families in the impossible situation of choosing between keeping the lights on and paying rent. Electricity rates in San Diego rank among the highest in the nation and their trajectory is alarming.

On November 20, 2025, the Trump Administration released its Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing

Program that would reopen Southern California’s coastal waters to new oil and gas drilling for the

first time in decades. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) proposal includes six

large new leasing zones in federal waters off Southern California, reversing decades of bipartisan

California opposition to offshore drilling and putting long-standing coastal protections, local

economies, and energy affordability at immediate risk.

Washington’s actions are pushing San Diego’s communities to the brink. H.R. 1, signed by the Trump Administration, guts the very programs that keep people healthy, housed, and fed. This law rips hundreds of millions each year from the County of San Diego, cutting off lifelines like food assistance, Medicaid, and other essential supports families depend on.

Across the country, a little-known section of the new federal budget law, H.R. 1, has thrown the nation’s reproductive health care system into crisis. The law imposes a one-year ban on Medicaid reimbursements to nonprofit providers that also offer abortion services, cutting off all Planned Parenthood services from their critical source of funding.

Across the country, more than 42 million Americans, one in eight people, rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to afford groceries each month. These are working parents, seniors, and children who depend on modest food benefits to make ends meet. Now, because of Washington’s dysfunction, they are being told to go hungry.

Over the past year, communities have witnessed an alarming escalation in raids carried out by masked, unidentified agents. A CNN investigation released in October 2025 found that incidents of fraudsters and predators impersonating Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have surged this year, more than in the past four presidential administrations combined, with reports ranging from assault and kidnapping to extortion.

Every year, entertainment events vendors employ hundreds of stagehands to build and break down stages, rig lighting and amplification systems, and move heavy-duty equipment at large revenue-generating events in County of San Diego (County) parks, work that can turn deadly when safety corners are cut.

County facilities are where San Diegans turn for help, to apply for food assistance, enroll in healthcare, report wage theft, meet with a caseworker, or speak with a public defender. They are meant to be safe, welcoming, and rooted in trust, reflecting the County’s highest purpose: that the noblest motive is the public good. Yet across the country, troubling incidents have shown what happens when that trust is violated.

After months of public engagement and deliberation, the Board of Supervisors and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) delivered a structurally balanced County budget. The Adopted Operational Plan for Fiscal Years 2025–26 and 2026–27 maintains essential functions, such as keeping deputies on patrol, firefighters on call, and home health aides supporting older adults. The Adopted Operational Plan also makes strategic investments, from behavioral health workforce expansion to emergency response infrastructure.

For nearly eighty years, the Tijuana River Valley has absorbed raw sewage, industrial waste, pesticides, heavy metals, and hazardous chemicals carried across the border. These pollutants have settled into the soil, wetlands, and estuary, creating a toxic legacy that endangers public health, fragile ecosystems, and the regional economy.

Across San Diego County, communities are increasingly living in fear as federal immigration crackdowns escalate, tearing families apart and destabilizing neighborhoods. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests in the County have increased by over 400% this yeari, with indiscriminate raids hitting neighborhood restaurants, Home Depot parking lots, and even near elementary school drop-off zones. San Diegans have voiced in strong opposition to these actions, as families are displaced and loved ones detained, often with no criminal record, by agents carrying out violent and chaotic arrests.

Beginning October 1, 2025, hundreds of unaccompanied immigrant children, some as young as toddlers, will be forced to stand before an immigration judge without an attorney. They will face federal prosecutors alone, with their futures and safety on the line.