FRESNO COUNTY – The Fresno County Board of Supervisors solidified its legislative platform for the upcoming year, and continued to discuss how its priorities and operations may be impacted by the state budget.
Within its 2025 legislative platform, the county added an entire section of priorities focused on housing and homelessness. It also updated its list of major legislative issues to reflect current needs. The platform was unanimously adopted by the board on March 25 and will act as a guide for county officials as they carry out department operations and advocate for various issues with the state.
“The platform before your board provides a statement of the goals and priority of the board,” Deputy County Administrative Officer Samantha Buck said. “It establishes a basis for advocacy efforts with the legislature and state agencies, and it was updated with input from county departments and our state advocate Paul Yoder, who is joining us here today.”
Major legislative issues supported by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors involve health care reimbursements, the use of state funding to improve water storage in the Valley and the authorization of shelter facilities that meet the complex needs of foster care youth. According to the legislative platform, the county also supports widening Highway 99 to six lanes between Sacramento and Kern County.
For 2025, the county expanded its top priority — increasing state reimbursements to health care providers including hospitals serving in disadvantaged and rural areas — to list not just hospitals but also all medical professionals. It also added on a priority to support “robust broadband funding initiatives” that prioritize collaboration with statewide stakeholders in order to ensure the equitable and timely distribution of broadband deployment funds.
Other major legislative issues were updated to reference the “expeditious appropriation of funding” from Proposition 4, the state water bond passed by voters in November 2024. Projects that will receive funding from Prop 4 include above and below ground water storage and forest management strategies to protect against firestorms.
Buck said the addition of an entire section dedicated to housing and homelessness was in line with Fresno County’s updated federal legislative platform. Included in these priorities was support for streamlining regulatory requirements for affordable housing programs, creating an annual state allocation of homelessness funding and expanding programs that provide health care services in connection to housing.
Board members had few comments on the legislative platform overall; however, Vice Chair Garry Bredefeld said he thought one point — support of legislation requiring those convicted of selling fentanyl be advised that their actions are dangerous to human life and if they continue, they can be charged with murder — seemed “silly.”
“I’m not sure that we need this anymore,” Bredefeld said. “Maybe we needed it early on, when it was people didn’t understand about how bad fentanyl was. It just seems silly to have it in here, like, ‘Hey, we just want to tell you, if you’re doing bad things, you could be held accountable for it.’”
After reviewing the updated legislative platform, the county’s lobbyist Paul Yoder provided supervisors with a review of current activity in the State Legislature and a forecast on the May Revise of the state budget. Although Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initial budget proposal included a small surplus, Yoder said “things have gotten worse since I last spoke to you.”
Yoder said revenues are steady but the state is spending more than it projected, particularly related to health care and relief for the Los Angeles County wildfires. Officials from LA County and impacted cities are lobbying the legislature weekly for financial support to make up for lost property tax revenues, Yoder said, but he is unsure if the state will have any funds to spare.
Further, Yoder said there was an attempt to have the first round of Prop 4 funding related to fires be directed solely to Southern Californian. Given that Prop 4 was a voter-approved, statewide initiative, and other areas of the state have also been hit by destructive wildfires in recent years, Yoder said that money has been protected to be distributed statewide.
Fresno County will continue to monitor the state budget and any potential deficits that could hurt county operations. An initial outlook of the county’s 2025-26 budget showed a potential $15 million deficit, but final estimates remain to be seen. The board of supervisors will review a draft budget in June and hold final budget hearings in September.
