Social Services Expected to Be Big Loser in County Budget

The Orange County Grand Jury, which did not find many good things to say about county government this year, did have some nice words for its foster home program and urged improved support for foster parents.

Under the county’s budget plans for the fiscal year that began last Wednesday, however, that’s exactly the opposite of what will happen.

From foster care to probation, the budget writers are trimming spending anywhere and everywhere they can in preparation for hearings later this month that precede final adoption of the fiscal 1987-88 county budget. But it is in the area of social services that the cuts are expected to be especially deep.

If the $1.7-billion budget tentatively approved late last month by the Board of Supervisors is enacted as proposed, two positions devoted to support services for foster parents will have to be eliminated, according to county Social Services Agency officials.

Finds It Ironic

Larry Leaman, director of the Social Services Agency, finds it particularly ironic that support for foster parents is likely to be cut.

“The grand jury wants more of it, and under this budget there would be less of it,” he said.

Another likely casualty is a highly touted program to incarcerate low-risk jail inmates in their own homes and monitor their whereabouts by making them wear electronic bracelets. Operated by the county Probation Department, the $120,000-a-year program frees 25 jail beds for more dangerous inmates.

The need for more jail beds is one reason the county is finding it so difficult this year to balance its proposed budget.

Since 1985, when the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates were found in contempt of court for failing to end overcrowding in the county’s main jail, officials have scrambled to expand existing jail facilities and worked toward building new ones.

The costs of those efforts, combined with hold-the-line budgets adopted in recent years despite employee pay increases, has led to the bleakest county budget picture in years, officials say.

County administrators say they have no choice but to order layoffs.

Carry-Over Funds Gone

Normally, the county has a healthy amount of carry-over funds from one fiscal year to the next to form the basis for spending in the new year. But last year’s expenditures of tens of millions of dollars on jail projects and tens of millions more for negotiated pay raises for county workers left the treasury depleted.

That means the Social Services Agency, which has 1,790 workers, may lose 92 people to layoffs; the Probation Department, with 976 employees, may lose 68, and the Health Care Agency, with 1,606 workers, may lose 28. The Sheriff’s-Coroner’s Department may also have to lay off two dozen or more workers, though there are no firm figures yet, County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish said.

Health Care Agency Director Tom Uram said the cuts his agency has been asked to make would “definitely hurt” some programs, including dental services, mental health, child guidance, animal control and family planning.

Leaman said the layoffs in the Social Services Agency could end up costing the county money because fewer workers may mean more mistakes.

The state limits administrative errors in some welfare programs that it finances to 3% to ensure that ineligible people don’t collect funds.

“If workers make errors that exceed 3%, then we are penalized by the state financially,” Leaman said. “We are operating within that tolerance and are concerned that as workers’ caseloads creep up, the errors may creep up, too.”

Leaman said that he may have to trim by one-third a preventive program through which the agency tries to help abused children and their parents without having them formally declared Juvenile Court wards and taken out of their homes.

Court Could Intervene

If those cuts are made, he said, it moves the county “a step further to the point where the only way people can receive services would be for the situation to be so desperate the court would intervene.”

Workers in Leaman’s agency will be subject to the “last-hired, first-fired” rule if layoffs are carried out. That means that if slots are cut from a children’s program, in which all the employees are long-time county workers, they can move to another unit in the agency, “bumping” people there to other jobs or, for those without seniority, onto the unemployment rolls.

Ron Anderson, manager of the Social Services Agency’s adoptions program, said state officials have already been told that the Orange County unit may be closed and its 23 workers transferred, forcing the state to set up its own program.

But on Friday, Kenneth Clark, director of administration for the Social Services Agency, said the state had come up with additional money for the adoptions program, and “we’re obviously a lot more hopeful at this point.”

Clark said the total cost of the program is about $1.3 million a year, and the county had been paying approximately $200,000 of that. But new state funds mean that this year’s cost to the county would be only about $38,000, he said.

Figure Is Deceptive

While the $1.7 billion in the county’s proposed 1987-88 budget may seem like a lot, Parrish said, the figure is deceptive because more than half of it is earmarked for special services such as flood control, harbors, parks, libraries and fire equipment.

General fund expenditures in the new budget total only about $833 million. That’s $25 million less than last fiscal year.

In some cases, the state and federal governments require levels of service that can be met only by spending additional money out of the general fund. If that level of service drops, state and federal funds can be cut off.

And in “public protection” areas, such as the Sheriff-Coroner’s Department, the district attorney’s office and the Fire Department, “no matter how rough (supervisors decide to be) . . . there is a base service below which it is not in anybody’s interest to drop,” Parrish said.

More Briefings Due

Budget analysts in Parrish’s office have scheduled more briefings for supervisors before budget hearings begin July 29. County department heads continue to say they hope some of the expected layoffs can be avoided.

But the budget contains no money for pay increases, and nearly all the county’s workers, from sheriff’s deputies to welfare clerks, are at the end of their two-year contracts.

County Clerk Gary Granville, who has been able to avoid cuts in his budget by raising fees, said that some of his workers were unhappily discussing the likelihood of no raises this year, when one remarked: “Well, at least we’re not being laid off.”