Contra Costa County, California

Overview

Contra Costa County's FY 2026-27 adopted budget schedules show total financing sources of $7,655,052,993 for all funds, matched by financing uses of $7,463,205,120 plus increases to obligated fund balances of $191,847,873. Governmental funds account for $3,731,523,432 of sources; enterprise funds (principally the Contra Costa Health Plan and hospital enterprise) account for $3,097,362,523; special districts (including fire and flood control districts) account for $803,747,231; and internal service funds for $22,419,807. The General Fund is $2,923,967,870 of sources — less than half the all-funds total, because health-plan enterprise funds are nearly as large.

Source: Contra Costa County FY 2026-27 Adopted County Budget Schedules, Schedule 1.

At a glance — FY 2026-27 adopted

Source: Contra Costa County FY 2026-27 Adopted County Budget Schedules, Schedule 1.

General Fund — FY 2026-27 adopted

The General Fund's total financing sources of $2,923,967,870 comprise available fund balance of $244,687,965, decreases to obligated fund balances of $57,054,143, and additional financing sources (current-year revenues) of $2,622,225,762. Financing uses are $2,855,324,879, plus increases to obligated fund balances of $68,642,991, matching the total exactly. The General Fund therefore draws $301,742,108 from fund balance ($244,687,965 available plus $57,054,143 in decreases) and adds back $68,642,991, for a net draw of $233,099,117 — about 8% of its total financing.

Governmental funds overall: General Fund $2,923,967,870 + Special Revenue Funds $807,176,024 + Capital Projects Funds $379,538 = $3,731,523,432 in sources; uses $3,610,386,162 plus increases to obligated balances $121,137,270 = $3,731,523,432.

Source: Contra Costa County FY 2026-27 Adopted County Budget Schedules, Schedule 1.

Spending by function — FY 2026-27 adopted

Public assistance is the largest function at $1,039,335,114 (28.8% of governmental uses), followed by public protection at $969,066,464 (26.8%) and health and sanitation at $857,427,348 (23.7%). Together those three are 79.4% of all governmental financing uses. The Road Fund's total financing of $97,245,503 sits inside the public ways and facilities figure's broader category.

Source: Contra Costa County FY 2026-27 Adopted County Budget Schedules, Schedules 1 and 7.

Board meetings

The Board of Supervisors meets on Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m. at the County Administration Building, 1025 Escobar Street, Martinez — not every Tuesday; check the county calendar for dates of upcoming meetings.

Contra Costa County Board meeting agendas and videos

Livability — Contra Costa County

Contra Costa County scores 59.8 on the Hometown Numbers Livability Index, ranked #10 of 58 ranked California counties. Violent crime: 379.4 reported violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2024 (FBI Crime Data Explorer; score 69.3, where a higher score means a lower rate). Full rankings: California livability rankings.

Method: percentile rank (count below + 0.5 × count equal) ÷ N × 100, lower-better measures inverted; composite is the mean of available component scores, rounded to 1 decimal; a county needs at least 5 of 7 components or it is unranked, never estimated. Vintages: ACS 2024 5-year (2020–2024) for housing affordability, income, and commute; FBI Crime Data Explorer 2024 for violent crime; County Health Rankings 2025 release for graduation and uninsured. Unemployment (BLS LAUS 2024) is missing for every California county because the BLS public API was unreachable (HTTP 503) on 2026-10-25; composites rest on the other components and will be recomputed if BLS data becomes available.

Housing prices — Contra Costa County

County-level figures for Contra Costa County.

Source: American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates (2020–2024), tables B25077 (median home value) and B25064 (median gross rent).

Public schools — Contra Costa County

Schools physically located in Contra Costa County.

280 public schools in 40 school districts, from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES EDGE Public School Locations, 2024–25 school year).

School performance (proficiency): district-level proficiency values are published in the federal Ed Data Express tool and are retrievable by CSV export, but they have not yet been added to this page — the export requires a live-browser download (direct requests to the tool are blocked), so no proficiency figures are shown rather than substituted ones. Source for the list: NCES EDGE Public School Locations — Current, 2024–25.

Neighbor comparison

How Contra Costa County’s General Fund spending per resident and fund-balance share compare with adjacent counties, computed from each dashboard’s own published figures.

GF figure: General Fund total financing sources, FY 2026-27 adopted.

Fund-balance % dashed: available fund balance $244,687,965 is beginning, not ending

Marin County: Fund-balance % dashed: no GF ending balance published

San Joaquin County: Fund-balance % dashed: June 30, 2025 balance $382,458,987 is prior-year ending, not FY 2025-26 ending

Sonoma County: Fund-balance % dashed: no GF ending balance published (Fund Balance/Net Assets $374,255,241 is countywide, not GF)

Sacramento County: No Sacramento County dashboard in this dataset (no county GF figure exists here); a city dashboard in the county, if any, does not supply a county figure.

San Francisco County: No San Francisco County dashboard in this dataset (no county GF figure exists here); a city dashboard in the county, if any, does not supply a county figure.

Solano County: No Solano County dashboard in this dataset (no county GF figure exists here); a city dashboard in the county, if any, does not supply a county figure.

Per-capita GF spending = the dashboard’s published General Fund total ÷ county population (ACS 2024 5-year, table B01003). Fund balance % = published GF ending balance ÷ GF total for the same fiscal year unless noted.

— in the fund-balance column means no GF ending balance is published on that dashboard (adopted budgets typically state only a January 1 balance).

Neighbor rows are county figures for the counties adjacent to the home county (U.S. Census Bureau County Adjacency File, 2024; out-of-state neighbors excluded).

Sources & notes

• Only source used: Contra Costa County FY 2026-27 Adopted County Budget Schedules, Office of the Auditor-Controller. Read the schedules. Budget documents page: County Budget Information.
• Sum checks: all funds $7,463,205,120 + $191,847,873 = $7,655,052,993; governmental $2,923,967,870 + $807,176,024 + $379,538 = $3,731,523,432; governmental $3,610,386,162 + $121,137,270 = $3,731,523,432; General Fund $244,687,965 + $57,054,143 + $2,622,225,762 = $2,923,967,870; General Fund $2,855,324,879 + $68,642,991 = $2,923,967,870; functions $459,062,730 + $969,066,464 + $857,427,348 + $1,039,335,114 + $56,469,983 + $209,024,523 = $3,590,386,162; + $20,000,000 contingencies = $3,610,386,162.
• Disclosed, not smoothed: (1) the $7.248 billion county headline figure differs from the $7,655,052,993 Schedule 1 total and is not reconciled here; (2) the May 19, 2026 adoption date comes from the county's news posting, not from the schedules excerpt; (3) enterprise-fund detail (health plan, hospital) was not separately extracted.
• Fiscal-year label: FY 2026-27 (July 1, 2026–June 30, 2027), adopted budget. County seat Martinez.
• Page accent: #04354D, the Contra Costa County’s official site theme color (contracosta.ca.gov); the dark-theme accent (#6ECAF7) is a lightened tint of the same color for contrast on the dark background.

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