Santa Cruz County's $1.29B Budget Avoids Layoffs — But Santa Cruz Community Health Flags a ~$2.3M/Year Hit From the July 1 UIS PPS Cut

Santa Cruz County's adopted FY2026-27 budget (~$1.29 billion) avoids layoffs by leaning on roughly $43 million in one-time funds, dropping reserves to about 10.4% — a one-year patch, not a structural fix. The sharper FQHC signal comes from Santa Cruz Community Health, which publicly estimates a ~$2.3 million annual revenue loss — affecting roughly 2,000 patients and 12,000 visits a year — when California eliminates the State-Only (UIS) PPS rate for undocumented Medi-Cal members on July 1, 2026 and shifts payment to the lower fee-schedule/managed-care rate. It is one of the first named-FQHC dollar figures quantifying the statewide UIS-PPS hit (CHCs are projected to lose at least $1.6B in FY2026-27), giving boards a concrete benchmark for modeling July 1 exposure and the service-reduction risk that follows.