County Looks for New Ways to Tighten Its Budgeting Belt

Layoffs, higher court fees and dirtier buildings are possible solutions under discussion to solve a county problem that worsens each year: balancing the budget.

The heads of county departments and agencies have been told to cut their previously submitted target budgets for the next fiscal year by 6% and to prepare a “worst-case scenario” involving 12% cuts.

That, says Environmental Management Agency Director Ernie Schneider, would mean layoffs in his department.

“We’re talking about losing some people, staff reductions, four or five people,” Schneider said. But he stressed that the figures are “all preliminary” and that he hopes to avoid layoffs. Where they would be made has not been determined yet, he says.

‘Vitally Needed’

County Clerk Gary Granville says cuts in his proposed budget would mean a $189,000 computer system that is “vitally needed” will not be bought. “Without it, the level of service drops,” Granville said.

R.A. (Bert) Scott says the cuts will mean county buildings with floors that are not waxed or swept as often, paint jobs deferred, maintenance delayed.

“You can defer building maintenance,” said Scott, director of the county General Services Agency. “In the long run that costs you, but in the short run it can help. Our biggest proposed cut will be in custodial services. We’re just not going to be able to keep the facilities clean as often as people are used to.”

The county must enter the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, with the two sides of its budget--revenue and expenses--evenly matched. Getting the figures to that point started last December, well in advance of the Board of Supervisors’ approval of the proposed budget in June and hearings on the approved proposal in July.

County officials say the cutbacks are occurring not because revenue from taxes and fees is less than anticipated but because the county is spending more this year than officials had hoped. A key problem is the fact that no money was budgeted last year for salary increases for county employees.

Auditor-Controller Steve Lewis says the supervisors knew that county employees were to receive pay raises negotiated by their unions but in effect told department and agency heads to absorb the $18.3 million in raises without budgeting it separately.

Lewis says county officials hoped that leaving some jobs unfilled, spending less on supplies and being economical in other ways would cover the pay increases. It didn’t work.

Less in General Fund

Now, though the county is not in danger of going into the red, it does have considerably less in its general fund than expected. And that will have to be accounted for in the budgeting process for the next fiscal year if the money can’t be made up before July 1.

Each year, the supervisors build a cushion into the budgeting process, intending to carry over money not spent into the next year, and this year that cushion has been depleted. Lewis says the county has $20 million less in its general fund than it hoped to have at this point. The current county budget totals nearly $1.5 billion, and next year’s is expected to be roughly the same.

Like a family hoping to end the year with a nice cushion to carry it into the new year, only to find out its “pin money” is less than expected, the county is now looking for ways to tighten its belt.

County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish said in an interview that spending had been especially high in the county’s criminal justice system.

“Crime goes on and that impacts the public defender and the district attorney and things over which we have no control,” he said.

‘Brutal’ Budgeting Task

“We’re in desperate shape this year--it’s the worst budget forecast I’ve ever had to deal with,” said Parrish, who was chief administrative officer in Santa Barbara County before taking his Orange County job two years ago.

He characterized the process of getting the upcoming year’s budget in balance as “brutal” and said it will be done by “either ludicrously low contingency funds or massive cuts in services and employees, or both.”

Parrish said the county now has about 1,500 vacancies in its work force of 14,590, approximately double the normal rate, and “we’re looking at considerably more.”

Jails must be built and criminals must be chased, prosecuted and defended, so public safety programs largely escape the ax, he said. Departments financed mostly by fees for the services they charge also can duck cuts, which offers hope to someone like County Clerk Granville.

Granville’s budget for the current year is about $8.5 million, just a sliver in the county’s overall budget of $1.49 billion. All but about $500,000 of Granville’s budget is financed by fees for such things as filing court documents, obtaining marriage licenses and making copies, he says.

To avoid cuts, Granville hopes to raise the fee for filing a civil court lawsuit from $108 to $118 or $120.

‘Trying to Get Us Out’

Of the current $108, the clerk’s office gets $82, with the rest going to a judge’s retirement account, court reporter costs and upkeep for the law library.

“I’m trying to get us out of this (budget problem) and make us self-supporting,” Granville said in an interview.

If he does, he said, he should be able to get his computer.