An Exploration of County Expenditures and Revenues for Children's Services

The changing conditions of children in California will necessitate significant increases in public expenditures. For example, the annual enrollment growth in schools alone will increase education expenditures by about 3 percent. Many of these additional children will require special services due to recent immigration, working parents, poverty, or family disorganization. Great strain will be placed on county and school district resources in order to keep pace with growth and tailor programs to the particular circumstances of various localities.

The current system for financing children's services in California provides cities greater fiscal flexibility and revenue-raising potential than counties and school districts. But counties and school districts are the major providers of children's services and provide a broad array of children's services, while cities have very limited responsibilities (mostly recreation and law enforcement).

This paper's objective is to provide information on county children's services and trends in county budgets. This will serve as a basis for further PACE research on the adequacy of county financing for children's services.