Tulare County, California

Overview

Tulare County's FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget plans $2,027,185,734 in total governmental financing uses ($2,037,056,671 including special districts). The General Fund accounts for $1,401,775,973 of financing sources: $77,664,768 in available fund balance plus $1,324,111,205 in additional financing sources. Public assistance ($629,441,379) and public protection ($448,985,409) are the largest recommended functions, followed by health and sanitation ($445,922,246). The General Fund balance at June 30, 2026 is $134,664,768, of which $57,000,000 is the strategic reserve, leaving $77,664,768 available; the recommendation adds $4,000,000 to the strategic reserve, taking it to $61,000,000.

Source: County of Tulare FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, Schedules 1–5 and 7.

At a glance — FY 2026-27 RECOMMENDED (not adopted)

Source: County of Tulare FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, Schedules 1, 2, and 7.

General Fund, FY 2026-27 recommended

Both sides balance exactly at $1,401,775,973.

Fund-balance derivation (Schedule 3): General Fund balance at June 30, 2026, $134,664,768, less the strategic reserve of $57,000,000, equals the $77,664,768 available. The recommended $4,000,000 increase takes the strategic reserve to $61,000,000.

Source: County of Tulare FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, Schedules 1, 2, and 3.

All funds, FY 2026-27 recommended

Fund totals sum exactly to the governmental total, and the governmental total plus special districts equals the all-funds total.

Source: County of Tulare FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, Schedule 1.

Revenues by source, FY 2026-27 recommended (Schedule 5)

The ten revenue sources sum exactly to $1,795,118,199. Note this is the Schedule 5 revenue total, which is smaller than total financing sources ($2,027,185,734) because total sources also include fund balances and other financing.

Source: County of Tulare FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, Schedule 5.

Financing uses by function, FY 2026-27 recommended (Schedule 7)

Function totals sum exactly to $1,992,289,649; plus appropriations for contingencies of $5,000,000 gives a subtotal of $1,997,289,649; plus provisions for obligated fund balances of $29,896,085 (General Fund $4,000,000; Library Fund $1,441,687; Realignment–Mental Health $24,453,130; Pension Obligation Bond $1,268) gives total financing uses of $2,027,185,734.

Source: County of Tulare FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, Schedule 7.

Elected officials

As printed in the book's front matter: Chair Amy Shuklian (District 3), Vice Chair Dennis Townsend (District 5), Larry Micari (District 1), Pete Vander Poel (District 2), and Eddie Valero (District 4). County Administrative Officer Jason T. Britt.

Source: County of Tulare FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, front matter.

Board meetings

The Board of Supervisors meets weekly on Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m. in the Board Chambers, 2800 West Burrel Avenue, Visalia, unless indicated otherwise.

Next meeting: Tuesday, October 27, 2026, 9:00 a.m.

Tulare County Board of Supervisors meetings

Livability — Tulare County

Tulare County scores 46.9 on the Hometown Numbers Livability Index, ranked #38 of 58 ranked California counties. Violent crime: 474.6 reported violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2024 (FBI Crime Data Explorer; score 37.7, 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 — Tulare County

County-level figures for Tulare County.

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

Public schools — Tulare County

Schools physically located in Tulare County.

195 public schools in 50 school districts, from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES EDGE Public School Locations, 2024–25 school year).

1 schools in the NCES 2024–25 locations list for this county are not shown because they are not currently open: Woodlake Community Day Primary (status 7) — temporarily closed (status 6) or scheduled to open within 2 years (status 7) under NCES CCD operational status codes.

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 Tulare 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 financing sources, FY 2026-27 Recommended (flagged basis).

Fund-balance % dashed: June 30, 2026 balance $134,664,768 is beginning of FY 2026-27, not ending

Fresno County: Fund-balance % dashed: fund balance available $89,000,000 is beginning, not ending

Kern County: GF total dashed: no GF total published (page reports County Funds group $4,358,790,731 and All Funds only)

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

Inyo County: No Inyo 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.

Kings County: No Kings 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: County of Tulare, FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget (tc-web.widen.net). FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget.
• Sum checks: General Fund sources and uses each exact ($1,401,775,973); fund totals exact ($2,027,185,734; all funds $2,037,056,671); Schedule 5 revenue sources exact ($1,795,118,199); Schedule 7 function totals exact ($1,992,289,649) with contingencies and obligated provisions reconciling to total uses.
• What is not claimed: this is a RECOMMENDED budget, not an adopted budget; no FY 2025-26 adopted figures are shown (the book's FY 2025-26 column is estimated/actual and its FY 2026-27 adopted column is blank); secondary coverage of the FY 2025-26 adoption (rounded $2.1B all-funds / $1.32B General Fund figures) was not used as page figures. If the parent overrules this basis switch, remove this page and record Tulare as BLOCKED.
• Jurisdiction palette: no verified California jurisdiction palette was on file, so this page uses the neutral Hometown Numbers dark-glass theme rather than a jurisdiction color.

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