Orange County Budget News Is Mostly Bad

With a few notable exceptions, Gov. George Deukmejian unveiled a proposed 1990 budget Wednesday that delivers some somber news to Orange County residents--especially the poor.

The proposal also was not good news for Orange County commuters.

“I’m sure this is going to be a difficult budget for Orange County to deal with,” said Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who with her staff was poring over the voluminous spending plan late Wednesday.

Not everything was gloomy for Orange County in the $54.1-billion spending plan, Deukmejian’s last before leaving office.

For instance, the fiscally conservative governor set aside $30 million to help pay for the long-delayed Santa Ana River flood control project, an ambitious, billion-dollar government undertaking designed to tame the waterway and remove the threat of flooding for the county’s 2 million people.

Then there were the millions of dollars Deukmejian proposed in public improvement and park projects, including $29.8 million to build a special science library at UC Irvine and $390,000 to draw up plans for a new lecture and office building at Cal State Fullerton.

But the bad news seemed to overshadow the good, leaving even Deukmejian partisans such as Bergeson agreeing that the spending plan is a tough one.

For instance, Deukmejian’s budget calls for all transportation projects--including most widening work on Interstate 5 in Orange County--to be delayed at least one year unless California voters agree to a 9-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase this summer.

The moratorium, however, leaves intact millions of dollars for previously approved Orange County freeway projects that have already gone out for bid. They include the early stages of the I-5 widening, as well as $22 million for widening Pacific Coast Highway through Newport Beach and Huntington Beach.

Orange County’s poor would be hard hit by the proposal, although county officials say exact figures will not be available until after they complete their analysis of the budget document.

Overall, Deukmejian’s budget would increase state health and welfare programs but would fall more than $1 billion short of keeping services for the indigent and mentally ill at current levels.

In Orange County, that cut translates into $8.5 million less to the already hard-pressed county Health Care Agency, which provides such public services as immunizations, child health care and comfort to AIDS victims.

“This is the major revenue source we have,” agency Assistant Director Ronald R. DiLuigi said Wednesday. “To cut it by a third is an extreme reduction. . . . We’re talking about a major, major hurt for county government in health care.”

And an angry UCI Prof. Howard Waitzkin, chairman of the Orange County Coalition on Indigent Care, added: “Any further cuts in the Health Care Agency budget would be an absolute disaster.”

Waitzkin said that Deukmejian’s budget makes health care less accessible to the poor people in Orange County than for some people in Latin America, where Waitzkin visited as a recent Fulbright scholar.

“People in those countries can usually find health care when they need it, but that’s not the case in Orange County,” he said.

The poor were dealt another blow when the fine print of Deukmejian’s budget revealed that he wants to reduce from $8 million to $3 million the annual subsidy paid to UCI Medical Center, the Orange teaching hospital which serves as a county facility for treating the poor.

Bergeson said that ending the subsidy would place “a much greater burden” on the hospital, because many of its cases involve people who cannot pay for their medical care. She said she would try to have the subsidy restored when the Legislature tackles the budget and sends it back to Deukmejian with suggested changes in June.

Roy Dormaier, UCI assistant executive vice chancellor, said the subsidy cut was “bad for the hospital” and would require that it borrow money for additional equipment purchases.

Deukmejian’s spending plan also would slice university operating expenses that would have supported an additional 900 graduate students statewide, including a planned increase in graduate and health-science enrollment at UCI.

But when it came to brick and mortar, Deukmejian was relatively generous to public universities and colleges in Orange County. Overall, the governor has proposed more than $68 million in local higher-education projects.

Benefiting the most would be UCI, where the governor wants to spend $51.5 million, including $29.8 million for a new science library and $12 million for renovation of Steinhaus Hall.

At Cal State Fullerton, the budget anticipates $1.6 million in construction plans, while local community colleges came in for more than $16.8 million in projects. The largest project calls for a $3.9-million gym and a $2-million child-care facility at Irvine Valley College in the Saddleback Community College District.

Another public project receiving funds is the Santa Ana River flood control effort, which affects people living in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The federal project will cost more than $1 billion, mainly to build a dam in San Bernardino County and upgrade 23 miles of river channel, mostly in Orange County.

A $30-million appropriation in Deukmejian’s 1990 budget would be the state’s first payment on its $254.8-million share of the project.

Other proposed Orange County-related projects:

- $13.7 million for land acquisition and improvements in Chino Hills State Park.

- $17 million for further renovation of the Amtrak San Diegan line, which runs through the county. The San Diegan line provides eight trains daily from Los Angeles to San Diego.