Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Services Director Sherri Terao, center, speaks about pending cuts to the county’s suicide prevention programs at a Behavioral Health Board meeting in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, June 8, 2026. (B. Sakura Cannestra/ Bay City News)
B. Sakura Cannestra/ Bay City News
Mental health experts and advocates are ringing the alarm over proposed cuts to Santa Clara County’s suicide prevention programs amid a historic budget crunch.
In light of massive federal budget cuts, county officials have been looking for ways to bridge a $787 million gap in the upcoming fiscal year budget. The county’s latest budget proposal includes cutting four of the five staff supporting the Suicide Prevention Oversight Committee, which advocates said could decimate the work the program has been doing for 15 years.
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Vic Ojakian, a former Palo Alto councilmember and suicide prevention advocate, gave a presentation on the program’s breadth of work at the Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Board meeting Monday afternoon, asking boardmembers to support activists in their efforts to stop the planned cuts.
He showcased the program’s success setting best practices for suicide reporting and spearheading intervention and postvention strategies that have been picked up at the state and national levels. He also stressed the program’s local impacts connecting residents to lifesaving resources, such as community-centered organizations and peer support.
“In the end, this program has been productive, it’s been innovative, it’s had high community engagement, so there’s no reason to change it,” Ojakian said at the meeting.
He said efforts by the program and partnering organizations have contributed to Santa Clara County maintaining one of the state’s lowest suicide rates, with an average of 8.1 per 100,000 residents as of 2023. The state’s 2023 average was 10.7 per 100,000 residents.
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The county has been preparing for a historic deficit ever since last year, when the federal administration touted sweeping healthcare cuts later solidified in H.R. 1. 2025’s Measure A was passed by voters, partly in anticipation of the cuts, and is expected to generate about $337 million in the coming fiscal year.
County Executive James Williams’ proposed budget allocates the entirety of Measure A’s funds toward the county’s public healthcare system, the second largest in the state, but it isn’t enough to offset the full deficit. County leaders are pushing for more state funding to patch healthcare costs, but the state’s June 15 budget deadline is inching ever closer.
Behavioral Health Services Director Sherri Terao pointed to the state’s transition to the Behavioral Health Services Act in July as another cause for the budget fluctuation, but noted that the county’s budget constrictions have had sweeping impacts to her department beyond the suicide prevention program.
“I’m not trying to minimize the impact to any one program, but this is very significant,” Terao said at the meeting. “As we’ve been sharing around our budget conversation earlier this calendar year, behavioral health is facing very difficult decisions.”
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Terao said the department has committed to supporting the Suicide Prevention Oversight Committee over the next year, but is still trying to figure out what educational material and programs the department will be able to maintain going forward.
A handful of representatives from those community organizations spoke at the meeting pressing the importance of the program. Mora Oommen, executive director for the nonprofit Youth Community Service, said they’ve been supported by the program staff’s deep well of institutional knowledge. She said they’ve been able to connect the program’s youth to other services if needed, and that the program’s data collection has helped local organizations form a unified approach.
Shashank Joshi, senior associate vice provost for academic well-being at Stanford University and a member of the HEARD Alliance suicide prevention collaborative, said it’s unclear how independent mental health support services and suicide prevention programs will fare without guidance and support from the county’s program staff.
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“Unfortunately, we’re going to have suicide with us as a population in California for years to come, but we can make some impact if we can use tools that we know are effective,” Joshi said. “If we can preserve the people who’ve been doing this work to engage the communities, that’s our best shot.”
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The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will receive an updated budget proposal June 15.
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