Working as a Yolo supervisor, just like being mayor of Davis, is not an 'in-box job,' Don Saylor said a little more than a week before leaving one job for the other.

'We're not waiting to see what comes in the in-box,' he explained. Saylor will take the oath of his new office Monday, but he won't be twiddling his thumbs afterward, looking to County Administrator Patrick Blacklock to fill him in on the basics.

Saylor won the seat in June. However, he knew voters would elect him in March when the deadline for an opponent to enter the race came and went without a challenger.

He's studied ever since, attending board meetings, touring the county's 1,021 square miles with different supervisors, peeking into some of the county's myriad departments. Saylor said he still has a lot to learn, with city and county governments being so different.

His priorities, however, carry over from the council to the board, both local governments trying to stave off cuts while trimming budgets.

Summing up Saylor's focus as he steps into a new job and a new year is money, money, money - he wants more of it for the 40,000 people in his West Davis district, more for the 200,000 Yolo County residents and more of it for government, including both the county and its four cities.

Getting more cash means attracting tourists; tapping the brain power of 'a world-class university at UC Davis'; trimming costs by combining services with other governments; and luring businesses, particularly those offering high-paying knowledge-based jobs.

Like Mori Seiki. The high-tech Japanese manufacturer chose Davis over Chicago as the home for its U.S. plant. As mayor, Saylor sent a letter to Mori Seiki's president while he was in town in the final days of courting. He hopes winning the bid sends a message to the business world.

'Davis has a reputation as unfriendly toward any proposed project,' Saylor said. 'We are not unfriendly toward business.'

He's willing to look beyond the city's border to find land to accommodate business development. The city is analyzing properties beyond the city's limits to house a future business park. Land east of Mace Boulevard and north of Interstate 80 came up as a possible site in a recent meeting between two supervisors and two City Council members.

The so-called pass-through agreement is in play. After the county approved the Mace Ranch development on land outside the eastern limits of Davis in the 1980s, the city brokered a deal to prevent development on its edge without council approval.

The county agreed not to build just outside the city in exchange for recouping lost property tax revenues. The agreement, however, can't stop the county from developing on land just outside the city, Saylor said. If the county does so without the city's approval, it would forfeit money each year.

Still, the county can study possible development locations, Saylor said. 'I would foresee over time there would be areas around the city that the county (and the city) will talk about together.'

Saylor will face a stiff learning curve as he moves from city government, independent with guaranteed revenue streams, to county government, largely an arm of the state. There's an umbilical cord between Sacramento and the 58 county seats.

Counties tackle an array of services, from inspecting restaurants to overseeing gas station owners. The state compels counties to enforce the law, prosecute suspects, jail criminals, aid the poor, heal the sick and help the mentally ill.

State law guarantees cities money from property and sales taxes. Counties, on the other hand, rely on a direct revenue stream from the state.

'You're in constant budget scarcity mode,' Saylor said. 'I've seen many people in that situation with county government, worn down by year after year of budget reduction.'

Saylor tipped his cap to the 'creative approaches' his future colleagues have used to keep going, but he's not interested in 'sitting and waiting for the state to come and take some more money.'

He will draw on his work with Saving California Communities, a nonprofit organization pushing to reform the state's relationship with local government. He also spearheaded DSIDE, a group composed of the Chamber of Commerce, the Davis Downtown Business Association, the Yolo County Visitors Bureau and UC Davis.