County’s $1.2-Billion Spending Blueprint for Next Fiscal Year Is Tentatively OKd

Shortly before 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, one of the staffers from the county administrative office swarming around the public hearing room in the Hall of Administration asked an aide to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, “Is it OK?”

The aide, John Stevens, turned to Larry Holms, director of county fire services, and repeated the question: “Is it OK?” Holms nodded yes, and the last piece of the county’s budget puzzle fell into place.

With the conclusion foreordained and no surprises in store, the final day of hearings on the budget began. When it ended 18 minutes and $45.8 million later, Holms walked off with an additional $21.7 million for the county Fire Department and the Board of Supervisors tentatively approved the $1.2-billion spending blueprint for the next fiscal year.

Final OK in 2 Weeks

Final approval of the 1985-86 budget is expected in two weeks, ending a process that began in January with the mailing of budget manuals to county departments and involving talks and trade-offs to make sure that nearly all the work was done by the time the public hearings were held.

For two mornings last week and again on Tuesday the five supervisors pored over computer screens which displayed column upon column of figures showing the amounts requested by departments and the amounts recommended by the administrative office, which draws up the spending document.

There generally were few questions from the supervisors, few complaints from department heads and few comments from the public.

The budget represents an increase of approximately 6% over the current $1.12-billion document, which was the county’s first billion-dollar budget. County officials said increases in salaries, general inflation and increased spending on the County Jail made up the bulk of the increase.

The supervisors began meeting with department heads months ago to discuss budget requests, and their aides continued the meetings through last Friday.

For the first two days of public hearings, aides sat behind the supervisors, occasionally coming forward to confer, to explain this or that figure, to point out an item of special interest to a supervisor’s district.

Aides’ Chairs Removed

By Tuesday, with the overwhelming majority of the budget already tentatively approved, the aides’ chairs had been removed.

The supervisors routinely voted for the $45.8 million in what are known as special district augmentation funds, dividing them as agreed upon at a meeting last Friday of executive assistants to each of the supervisors and representatives of county offices.

The county Fire Department wanted $23.8 million from the augmentation funds, state monies designed to cover at least part of the shortfall resulting from Proposition 13 in 1978, which halved the county’s revenues from property taxes.

The additional money would have provided a Fire Department budget of $48.3 million. But the reality is that there isn’t enough money to give the library, flood control, street and highway lighting districts and the rest all that they want.

“The bottom line is everybody got less,” said Richard Pickryl of the administrative office. “The biggies got less. Everybody got less.”

Holms’ Fire Department wound up not with the extra $23.8 million requested, but with $21.7 million.

Still, as he told Stevens, he could live with that. “Everybody who uses augmentation funds is in the same situation of there just not being sufficient funds in the augmentation pool to meet our needs fully,” Holms said after the hearing.

5 New Fire Engines Out

As a result, the Fire Department will get another year of use out of five of its fire engines, which it had hoped to replace at a cost of about $160,000 each. Holms said the department generally uses a fire engine for 20 years, then sends it off to be remanufactured for another 10 years’ use.

There will be other cuts in planned expenditures, too, Holms said, but the department expects to be able to provide “the same level of service” despite them.

Stevens said that had been his concern when he spoke with Holms before the final session of budget hearings began. “I just wanted to be sure that Larry was able to continue on his operations and wasn’t going to be severely impacted” by the lost $2.1 million, Stevens said.

At the end, the new county administrative officer, Larry Parrish, said the compilation of the budget “has been a very smooth process.”

And Supervisor Ralph Clark remarked, “I can remember when these things used to take weeks to finish a budget. Now it takes days.”