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I believe Lookout Santa Cruz Community Voices editor Jody K. Biehl and founder Ken Doctor clearly missed the mark with their recent endorsement of Monica Martinez for District 5 county supervisor. Of particular concern and surprise is their assessment that Martinez possesses “budget-crunching know-how” when her biggest red flag is her inability to manage her budget at Encompass Community Services. Martinez began working at Encompass Community Services, a nonprofit providing health and human services to Santa Cruz County residents, in 2014. Under her management and leadership, Encompass has been in the red eight out of nine tax years. Her annual shortfalls have ranged from $406,607 to $1,673,476 and total $4,908,978 over those nine years. 

This information is public record, which is available at propublica.org, and is based on Encompass’s tax filings. (ProPublica is an independent nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism.) It’s black and white, verifiable, and indisputable. Would you trust the financial soundness of a business who ran this much in the red? Not me.  

In evaluating this information, voters might wonder how other local nonprofits of similar size have fared over the same period. I have two examples for your consideration. The first, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County (CFSCC) operates an annual budget of $40 million and has been deficit-free the past 10 years. The second, Community Bridges, which has an annual budget of $24 million, has been in the black for nine of the past 10 years. As you can see, running your nonprofit in the red is not how other Santa Cruz County nonprofits conduct their business.

Need more information? Let’s look at assets and liabilities. Encompass’ liabilities are greater than their assets based on the most recent tax reporting while the assets of the other two nonprofits are significantly larger than their liabilities. To help you assess this information, Charity Navigator gave Encompass 0 out of 15 points for its liabilities-to-assets ratio and an overall score of 81%. In comparison, CFSCC and Community Bridges received full points for their ratios and overall scores of 97% and 100%, respectively.

Martinez has budget-crunching know-how? Clearly not. It is the responsibility and duty of our District 5 supervisor to spend our tax dollars with thoughtfulness and care. Should you trust Monica Martinez with your tax dollars? I don’t think so.  

Karen Anderson

Boulder Creek