A Veteran of Nine Budget Hearings Is Cut on First Day

The public information officer for Orange County was fired Wednesday as hearings began on the proposed $1.45-billion budget for 1986-87.

“I feel a little like a (baseball) manager,” John Bushman, county PIO for nine years, told the Board of Supervisors minutes before the vote to abolish his $34,900 position. “The team’s going to Anaheim and I’m not going with them.”

“That happens sometimes,” said Supervisor Harriett Wieder.

The move to eliminate Bushman’s job and merge his three-person office with another department came toward the end of a smooth first day of public hearings--a day in which supervisors gave preliminary approval to about $1 billion in spending.

The supervisors will meet again this morning at the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana to consider the “human services” portion of the budget, which includes $399.6 million of expenditures on the Health Care, Social Services and Community Services agencies.

Next will come hearings on capital projects and special districts. The budget will be formally adopted in late August.

On Wednesday the board gave preliminary approval to $298.1 million for community safety programs; $280.1 million for environmental management programs; $358.7 million in general services, and $115.4 million for general administration and support.

Departments began putting their budgets together in January, and most items were approved Wednesday without discussion.

Airport Expansion

Larry Parrish, the county’s chief administrative officer, said that without the $165-million expansion of John Wayne Airport, there would have been an increase of only 0.3% over last year’s budget.

Supervisors complained about the $8.9 million budgeted for private attorneys to defend accused criminals ineligible for defense by the public defender’s office, which has a budget of nearly $9 million. And they decided to hold the line on other expenditures.

Besides letting Bushman go, the board rejected Supervisor Thomas F. Riley’s request for a $250,000 county grant to the South Coast Repertory theatre, which is seeking funds to match a $350,000 “challenge grant” from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Riley said the grant would encourage “a unique opportunity to enrich the life style in Orange County,” but he failed to get support from any of the other four supervisors.

Losing Effort

Then he and Supervisor Ralph B. Clark lost on the 3-2 vote to cut Bushman’s post. The public information officer earns $34,900, but the reorganization of his department involves hiring a part-time worker, so the actual savings would be only $16,000.

Last Friday, the county administrative office distributed a 15-page report on the public information office and recommended that supervisors reorganize the unit, abolish Bushman’s job and transfering the operation to the Personnel Department.

For years, supervisors had transferred responsibilities for the county information office from one department to another, grumbling about the work it performed but, Wieder said, not saying just what it wanted the office to do.

The office--which handles inquiries from the public and press, photographs presentations at board meetings, issues press releases, updates county publications and coordinates information in the event of an emergency in the county--was stripped of three positions three years ago.

Nestande’s Comment

Supervisor Bruce Nestande called the transfer of the office “a positive restructuring” and said he was confident Bushman would find a job with another county department. Other supervisors echoed the hope that Bushman could stay with the county.

Bushman later labeled the comments “encouraging,” but said the loss of the job, probably in 60 to 90 days, was “a real kick in the teeth.”

“You raise a 9-year-old, and you get used to the kid,” he said. “Then the kid’s taken away and put in a foster home.”

A public relations worker for a private firm in Santa Barbara and then for the City of Cerritos before going to work for the county, Bushman said he was “taken aback” by the proposed elimination of his job when he learned about it Friday.

“They never said, ‘Did you know the board is unhappy with you and what would you do (to improve the situation?)’ ” he said.