Santa Clara County Prioritizes Children Amid Budget Issues

San Jose Spotlight

January 13, 2026

Santa Clara County is working to provide safety net programs to children and their families despite budget issues stemming from federal funding cuts.

The county’s children’s budget for fiscal year 2025-26 includes $1.3 billion to support the welfare of children and youth, up 2.8% from the previous fiscal year. The budget is targeted at foster care and adoption, detention and rehabilitation facilities and CalWORKS, which provides financial assistance, child care and health care to families in need. The majority of funding comes from the federal and state government, property tax and hospital revenues.

But with massive cuts to federal funding looming under H.R. 1, also known as President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the county has been tasked with making tough decisions.

The bill, approved by Congress on July 4, approved unprecedented cuts to federal health care and food assistance programs. About 38,400 children are at risk of losing access to health care and food assistance services, according to the county’s Social Services Agency.

While the county is committed to supporting vulnerable children and families, the loss of federal funding makes this mission challenging, District 4 Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said.

“We are being very thoughtful in looking at where our dollars are having the most impact, where there are opportunities to shift funding sources rather than eliminate programs altogether and where we need to look for other revenue opportunities,” she told San José Spotlight. “I would like to not see those cuts be made in programs that serve vulnerable children, because that sets us up for another generation of people experiencing poverty, trauma and poor health outcomes.”

Heidi Emberling, director of the Santa Clara County Office of Children and Families Policy, said H.R. 1 threatens the county’s entire social safety net. She said nearly one in three children in the county rely on Medi-Cal or CalFresh to access health care and food assistance.

“That will threaten family stability,” Emberling told San José Spotlight. “Without access to health care, families are going to have to flood ERs, as opposed to having access to primary care doctors.”

Emberling said to address federal cuts, the county will ensure families have access to food, housing, health care and child care.

In addition to navigating these cuts, county leaders are also concerned about a federal funding freeze impacting child day care centers statewide. The freeze is directed toward five states — California, Minnesota, New York, Colorado and Illinois — where the federal administration is claiming it has concerns about widespread fraud.

The feds are withholding billions of dollars from the Child Care and Development Fund, which provides low-income families with child care subsidies. The total freeze is more than $10 billion across all five states. California accounts for about $5 billion of those funds. A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from freezing funds. The order will last for 14 days unless it’s extended.

Santa Clara County receives more than $63 million for CalWORKS, which provides cash assistance to support employment goals, child care services and other pathways to sufficiency for 6,100 families, according to county data.

H.R. 1 will take about $1 billion of the $2.3 billion the county receives from the federal government, Emberling said. Some of this loss will be mitigated by Measure A, a five-eighths-cent sales tax increase approved by voters in November, which will raise about $330 million a year to protect hospitals, health care and public safety. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to expected annual losses, and county officials have previously said cuts will be necessary. The county is also asking the state for aid.

“We’re going to do the best we can with the resources we have to serve those most vulnerable in our community,” Emberling said.

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