Dear OCEA member,
Your OCEA Negotiations Team met again Tuesday, April 14, for our second internal meeting. At our previous meeting we reviewed the negotiations process, County financial data, proposal concepts, and ways to build internal power.
Yesterday we discussed County budget-related issues and spent the majority of the day vetting proposals that will eventually constitute our initial proposal to the County.
Please read on. This is important information you want to know.
County Executives/Board of Supervisors Updates
Since our previous meeting, OCEA staff met with representatives from both the County Executive Office and individual Board Offices. We had specific objectives: to directly challenge the County’s “Woe is Us” narrative, present supporting financial evidence, and make clear our demand for County fiscal accountability.
The County contends that state and federal budget cuts, unfunded mandates, and other alarmist scenarios provide excuses to avoid supporting workers.
OCEA confronted County representatives with concrete facts: soaring reserves, years of understated revenues, and what we believe to be the County’s undeniably strong fiscal standing.
Instead of embracing reality, they have so far elected to resist and continue to refuse to admit the fact that the County is in the fiscal position to invest in its workforce.
OCEA rejects these attempts to shortchange OCEA members and will continue to ratchet up our efforts to demand fair compensation, improved working conditions, and the respect every one of you deserves!
County Budget
In February 2026, OCEA retained a prominent public sector forensic accounting firm to perform an audit of the County’s financial condition. Here are just a few FACTS from that review:
- County Reserves are ABOVE Target: The County projects that by June 2026, its General Fund reserves will be $204 million greater than its reserve target of two-months of operating revenues.
- Internal Service Funds are OVERFUNDED: Four internal service funds have excess fund balances (money held beyond the recommended best practice) totaling approximately $94.6 million.
- Redundant Reserve Funds are also OVERFUNDED: The Miscellaneous Contingency Reserve has a balance of $23,012,862 as of June 2025, more than double its $10 million target.
- The Strategic Financial Plan ALWAYS Underestimates Revenues: The County has underestimated General Purpose revenues each year between FY 2018-19 through FY 2024-25, including by $95.7 million in FY 2022-23 and another $5 million in FY 2024-25. The 2019 Strategic Financial Plan underestimated actual projected General-Purpose revenues by $361 million (relative to the 2025 Strategic Financial Plan). More recently, the 2022 Strategic Financial Plan underestimated General Purpose Revenues by a total of $173 million over the period of FY 2022-23.
OCEA Proposal Development
The OCEA Negotiations Team spent most of Tuesday evaluating dozens of potential proposals. These proposals emerged from OCEA negotiations survey member suggestions, from OCEA professional staff, and from our team during today’s discussions.
Topics we considered included wages, specialty pays, holidays, teleworking, enhanced union rights, healthcare improvements, and many more.
The OCEA Negotiations Team will meet again April 28 when we plan to finalize our initial bargaining proposal. We currently anticipate that first meeting with the County will take place in early May.
It’s clear we will negotiate this year in a challenging political and economic environment. Our success will depend more than ever on our strength in numbers and our collective willingness to fight for ourselves and each other. If you want to do your part and get more involved with 2026 negotiations, please contact ocea.org/getinvolved.
In Solidarity,
Team OCEA
PS: Catch up on important information here!
