Pact Reached in Counties’ Squabble for Budget Slices

After fighting most of the week over how to divide a new pot of state aid for counties, budget negotiators in the Legislature late Thursday reached a compromise between long-urbanized counties and rapidly growing areas.

Los Angeles County would get about $33 million out of $88 million split among counties statewide in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Thursday’s compromise followed two days of intense negotiations--in which the two most prominent combatants were Los Angeles and Orange counties--over how the new money will be distributed.

Negotiating among local government lobbyists in a committee hearing room became so furious that at one point Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose), chairman of the two-house budget conference committee, banged his gavel and ruled that any lobbyist conversing in the aisles would be deprived of his county’s share of the disputed funds.

Alquist’s move quieted the audience for a time, but the committee itself went right on fighting, with Sen. Marian Bergeson, a Newport Beach Republican, battling Los Angeles Democrats Sen. Alan Robbins and Assemblywoman Maxine Waters.

“We’re usually a nice quiet family until we get a pot of money and try to divvy it up,” said Larry Naake, executive director of the County Supervisors Assn. of California.

“I’ve tried to tell them (the counties) to be like Ozzie and Harriet. But they seem more intent on being like the Ewings,” he said, referring to the fractious family in the “Dallas” TV series.

Traditionally, state aid for counties has been doled out through a system based on how much the counties were spending on health services programs in 1977, the year before Proposition 13 cut the property tax and required a two-thirds vote of the people to raise taxes or create new ones.

But Orange, San Diego and a few other California counties that a decade ago were just beginning to experience the social problems brought on by rapid urbanization were at that time spending relatively little on programs to treat such urban ills. Orange and San Diego counties also had a tradition of conservative political leadership that looked askance at health and social programs for the poor.

Los Angeles County, by contrast, was already spending heavily on public health services when Proposition 13 was enacted, so it has been the prime benefactor of state funds allocated to help the counties withstand the impact of the property tax cut.

The smaller counties argue that the old formulas are out of date. These growing counties are spending more and more to treat drug and alcohol abuse, provide medical care for the poor, and treat the mentally ill homeless wandering the streets and parks of their cities. But they are still getting the same percentage of state money distributed to the counties.

“That formula was designed 10 years ago, and this is not the same state it was 10 years ago,” said Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, a powerful Santa Clara County Democrat who sided with Bergeson, ensuring that the matter would be dragged out until a compromise could be reached.

‘An Unfair Method’

Bergeson said the continued use of the traditional formula “would literally destroy many of these programs that are already in serious trouble. It’s simply an unfair method of computing for those counties.”

But Waters said Los Angeles County is also hard-pressed. She said the county is short $77 million for next year’s budget and $45 million of that is in health programs.

Waters chided Bergeson for arguing over the money rather than working to persuade Gov. George Deukmejian to help all the counties by reducing his proposed $700-million tax rebate or softening his demand for a $1-billion reserve for emergencies.

“We’re scrapping about a measly amount of money in relation to what we could be talking about,” Waters said. “The governor wants a billion-dollar reserve, which means we have to cut and cut and cut further.

“Go and get us some relief from that requirement,” Waters told Bergeson. “Go and ask him if he’ll take $600 million. . . . We’ll give you some money for Orange County. We’ll give you some money for San Diego. . . . We’ll increase it for everybody.”

Late Thursday, the conference committee found a way to an agreement by adding $10 million to what had been a $78-million pot and then compromising in the dispute over distribution of the funds. Basically, the counties all split the difference.

The conferees also agreed to develop a new formula that, in the future, will more accurately reflect the current needs of the state’s fastest-growing counties.