A month and a half into her job as Santa Barbara County’s CEO, Chandra Wallar already has her work cut out for her in managing the county’s massive budget gap.
However, the financial distress hasn’t put a damper on the enthusiasm she’s brought to the office since taking over for the retired Mike Brown on Nov. 1.
“I’m loving it so far,” Wallar said. “It’s sort of like drinking out of a fire hose and trying not to get wet.”
Lured by the beauty of Santa Barbara and the opportunity to head the executive division of a large county, Wallar arrived in town from San Diego County, where she served for more than a decade as deputy chief administrative officer and general manager of the county’s Land Use and Environmental Group.
There, she became familiar with helping to determine fiscal policies in the face of severe budget shortfalls—streamlining county processes, prioritizing programs, and reducing spending. The experience prepared her for her current job, she said, where the budget deficit looms as the county’s biggest challenge.
Rising retirement costs, Wallar said, are responsible for the largest wedge in the gap, which she estimated at between $60 and $90 million. While final numbers from the county’s Retirement Board haven’t been released, the board estimated in November a $30 million increase in benefits from 2010 to 2011. After the results of a recent board meeting, Wallar said the jump now appears closer to between $20 million and $25 million.
A final report by the county’s Retirement Task Force is due in January, and based on a draft of the report, Wallar said the group will likely recommend reducing benefits for new employees and creating a two-tiered retirement system, eventually requiring a vote by the county supervisors.
However, Wallar said, a two-tiered retirement system would have “little impact” on balancing the budget in the short term, taking five to 10 years before the county would see any significant savings.
To make a more immediate dent, she said, the county will have to work with unions, seeking concessions on salaries, pay increases, and furlough days. Wallar said she’ll also look into reducing service levels in each department, while still maintaining the county’s top priorities: public safety, children, and the environment.
The new CEO’s first order of business in her three-year contract with the county will be to broach the topic of labor negotiations with the supervisors and clarify the board’s overarching priorities for 2011. She’ll also look into opportunities to enhance county revenue and ways to make county government run more efficiently.
In contrast to her predecessor Brown, the approachable Wallar runs her office with a somewhat open-door policy she refers to as “inclusionary.” Not just anyone can walk into her office, but she does hold regular meetings with staffers, department heads, and members of the community to take their suggestions and address concerns.
“Decisions aren’t made by me, independent of the department directors and the board,” she said. “I’m very aware that the better decisions have an opportunity for the operational people to have input to them.”
Wallar expects some lively discussions with supervisors on budget issues—in fact, she welcomes them. One reason she was drawn to Santa Barbara County was its reputation for the 3-2 board vote, in contrast with the lack of diversity she witnessed among San Diego County’s conservative, “all Republican” supervisors.
As far as her own political leanings, Wallar prefers to keep the topic off the table.
“I’m aware of politics, but I do not engage in politics. I think that’s where a CEO needs to be,” she said. “I’m sure [the supervisors] have enough politics in their life without having a CEO that also thinks from that perspective.”
A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with a degree in civil engineering, Wallar said her background in public works provides her with an “orderly way of thinking about things” and the skills to be a project manager for life. She’s also the first woman to hold the position of CEO in Santa Barbara County, but she shrugs off the novelty.
“When I went to college, I was the only woman in most of the classes,” she said. “I grew up in organizations that were typically all male, and I was the only woman. It’s really gotten to the point where I don’t even recognize it as a difference, or even think about it as being a difference.”
In a time of tough decisions, Wallar intends to make hers out in the open. She’s already held several public question-and-answer sessions and welcomes conversations with the media. Transparency, she said, will be a recurring theme of her tenure.
“It’s very important to me that our citizens understand what services we provide, how we provide those services, what it costs to provide those services,” she said. “I’ll be encouraging everybody to not even worry about coming in and asking to peek under the covers, because we’re not going to have any covers.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas can be contacted at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 23-30, 2010.