13 California Counties to Share $16 Million for Refugee Relief

California counties hard hit by an influx of Indochinese refugees will receive nearly $16 million in disputed federal aid because of a comptroller general’s ruling that the Reagan Administration improperly impounded refugee relief funds, The Times learned Thursday.

As a result of the decision, Los Angeles County is expected to receive an additional $4.85 million to underwrite job training, English language instruction and other programs for refugees. Orange County is targeted for an extra $2.16 million, and San Diego County would get $1.6 million. A combined assistance program in Riverside and San Bernardino counties would receive $274,212.

The funds are part of a $39-million aid package that the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement had refused to distribute to counties in several states. The money is earmarked for counties whose budgets for social service programs had been severely strained by large numbers of newly arrived refugees, a situation particularly acute in California.

Acting on a complaint filed by four California Democratic congressmen, Comptroller General Milton J. Socolar said in a June 28 letter to the congressmen that the refugee office, while acting “in good faith,” had erroneously withheld the funds.

Last week Philip A. Holman, director of the refugee office’s division of policy and analysis, sent a letter to the agency’s regional offices directing them to speed up distribution of the money.

The complex dispute began last year when the agency, which contends that the need for refugee assistance is winding down as fewer new refugees are entering the country, failed to distribute $39 million of the $77 million in similar aid voted by Congress for fiscal 1984, which ended last Sept. 30.

The refugee office released the disputed $39 million in March after the complaint by the four California Democrats--Reps. Howard Berman of Studio City, Don Edwards of San Jose, Richard H. Lehman of Sanger and Charles Pashayan Jr. of Fresno. But the agency then cut the $39 million out of the $50 million Congress had appropriated for the program this fiscal year.

Under that interpretation, the remaining $11 million would have been distributed only in Florida.

In drawing up the agency’s budget request for the next fiscal year, refugee officials did not ask for any funds to aid county governments, although they did budget $44.8 million to continue other existing refugee social service programs for state governments.

However, the House last month passed legislation authorizing another $50 million for county government refugee programs.

In all, 13 California counties are in line for additional refugee aid as a result of the comptroller general’s ruling. They include Santa Clara, $1.6 million; San Joaquin, $830,218; Sacramento, $822,765; Alameda, $961,284; Fresno, $530,820; Merced, $647,910; San Francisco, $124,937; Contra Costa, $274,854, and Stanislaus, $150,213.