No Problems Expected in Allocating $1.2 Billion : Air of Amity Pervades County Budget Hearings

The Orange County Board of Supervisors opened its annual rite of summer known as the budget hearings Wednesday, tentatively parceling out money by the millions of dollars and predicting no problems in balancing its $1.2-billion fiscal plan.

Day One of what could be 10 days of hearings on the spending blueprint lasted less than three hours and was over before lunch.

There was none of the contentiousness of past years, when supervisors challenged such items as the sheriff’s request for helicopters and worried whether a tax-cutting initiative would pass and cut into county revenues.

District Attorney Praised

One beneficiary of the sweetness-and-light atmosphere was Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks, who in past hearings has occasionally been questioned about his requests for more personnel and more money.

This year Supervisor Ralph Clark pulled Hicks’ $16.5-million budget out for discussion so he could praise the way the district attorney was operating his office. Supervisor Ralph Stanton chimed in to support creation of a four-person unit in the district attorney’s office to prosecute environmental crimes.

A smile wreathed Hicks’ face as he accepted praise from the board.

“I wouldn’t have missed this day for the world,” he exulted as his spending requests sailed through the preliminary approval process.

‘Sound Financial Condition’

County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish, whose office draws up the budget based on requests from various departments, told the supervisors that “we are in sound financial condition.”

Parrish said he was concerned, however, that the Reagan Administration’s plan to cut off federal revenue-sharing funds might make it difficult to balance the budget in future years. Other CAO staff members said about $20 million in revenue-sharing money will be used to balance the current budget.

Nearly one-quarter of the operating budget goes for what are called community safety programs, such as the Fire Department, district attorney’s office, court system and--the biggest of all--the Sheriff-Coroner’s Department, including the jail.

“Our highest priority in the budget went to jail capacity,” Ken Mays of the county administrative office told the board.

Jail Fund Established

In addition to giving preliminary approval to an operating budget of nearly $72 million for Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates, the supervisors set up a new, $6-million “jail alternatives fund,” designed to help the sheriff and the board comply with a federal judge’s order to end overcrowding at the main men’s jail in Santa Ana.

The judge, William P. Gray, found Gates and the supervisors in criminal contempt last March for not heeding his 1978 order that conditions at the jail be improved. The county has been fined nearly $100,000 since March and is being assessed $10 per day for each prisoner forced to sleep on the floor for more than one day.

Norb Puff, an analyst in the CAO’s office, said the $6 million will pay salaries for new staff hired at the two branch jails and at new trailer-like structures at the James A. Musick Honor Farm near El Toro and for new programs the county may come up with to reduce overcrowding at the jail.

One budget item that came under scrutiny, as it usually does, dealt with providing defense lawyers for poor people charged with crimes.

The public defender’s office is requesting $8.3 million, an increase of $700,000 over the last fiscal year’s outlay. But an additional $8 million was sought to pay private attorneys to defend indigents unable to be represented by deputy public defenders because of conflicts of interest.

Public Defender Study

Supervisor Ralph Clark, noting that public defenders represent 80% of the defendants unable to afford a private attorney, called for another study of whether a second public defender’s office should be established to handle conflict-of-interest cases. Supervisor Bruce Nestande said the study should determine the feasibility of abolishing the public defender’s office altogether and relying instead on private attorneys paid flat fees to defend the poor.

County analysts have studied the same proposals periodically for at least the last 10 years, most recently two years ago, but have always concluded that they would not save any money.

Supervisors raised questions about budget requests from several other offices as well, but generally gave preliminary approval to all the recommendations of the CAO without question. Final approval will come at the end of the hearings, which continue today.