Price Tag for County Buildings ‘Stunning’ : Budget: The supervisors adopt a $132-million, five-year building and maintenance plan suggested by administrators.

The County Board of Supervisors has seen the future, and the price tag is staggering.

It would cost Ventura County $98 million over the next five years for needed new structures and $34 million to keep existing ones in repair, the supervisors were told Tuesday.

The board adopted a five-year building and maintenance plan suggested by a committee of top county administrators that ranks all $132 million in proposals from county departments.

Ranked highest in the plan are health and public protection measures, including a new 400-bed jail to relieve overcrowding at the central jail in Ventura, which was designed for 400 inmates but now holds 1,100.

However, unlike the jail, which has $41 million committed by the state and county, most of the remaining projects have no visible means of support.

Seven of the 10 top-ranked building projects that should be constructed in 1990-91 carry a price tag of $8.4 million. The eight most essential maintenance proposals would cost another million, even without beginning costly roof repair and asbestos-removal programs scheduled for 1990-95.

In comparison, a county budget to be considered by the supervisors in hearings next month will have available only about $4 million for both building and maintenance, said Richard Wittenberg, the county’s chief administrative officer.

Wittenberg described the priority rankings of 44 building and 53 maintenance proposals as his “wish list.”

“It’s all the stuff we need,” he said. “What we’re saying is that we’re slipping further and further behind, and that has consequences.”

Wittenberg told the supervisors that all California counties are “chronically under-funded and I have no solutions,” except for better planning for needed construction and repair.

Officials cannot hope to meet such needs without first determining which projects they cannot do without and finding ways to pay for them, he said.

“We need to tie in a longer-term borrowing program so we can reach some of these goals,” he said. That means the sale of millions of dollars in bonds, he said. Other projects can be partially supported through new fees charged to users, he said.

Supervisors said they were surprised by the cost of the proposed projects and the importance of so many of them.

“I was absolutely stunned,” Chairwoman Madge Schaefer said. “Priority 15 is just as important at Priority 1.

“There just isn’t any extra money and there doesn’t appear there’s going to be any extra money,” she said.

Supervisor John K. Flynn called the listings “a roll of the dice” in evaluating many nearly equal needs. And he said that millions of dollars needed by some county-run facilities, such as Channel Islands Harbor, are not yet on the list.

Nor is an expensive parking garage that must be built at the county government center to make way for an expanded courthouse, he said.

The new courts wing, priced at $12 million, is among the expensive building proposals that did not rank among the top 10.

Another wing for the county government center, proposed for 1991-92, would cost $12 million. The two facilities tied for 13th on the list.

Ranked behind the new jail in the top 10 are a new children’s mental health center in Camarillo for $4 million; a mental health agency headquarters expansion for $3.2 million; an improved emergency center for the sheriff’s pretrial holding facility for $600,000; a new smoke alarm and sprinkler system for the courts building for $270,000; conversion of a boiler to gas at a sheriff’s pretrial facility; roof access by stairways at three county buildings; and a new $2-million headquarters for the coroner-medical examiner, now housed in a trailer.

Highest ranked among the maintenance proposals were relocation of a water system at the Colston Youth Center for $30,000; asbestos removal countywide for $1.25 million; and repair or replacement of roofs and restrooms at numerous county buildings.

The supervisors praised the ranking system.

“What’s been put together is a beginning, a big step in the right direction,” Supervisor Maggie Erickson said. She had been “operating in a vacuum” when assessing the comparative needs for capital improvements and maintenance, the supervisor said.

Schaefer pondered what would happen to the lists if a major earthquake struck the county.

And Wittenberg said: “There are a lot of little things out there that can keep you up at night.”

TOP COUNTY BUILDING PRIORITIES 1990-1994 Rank: 1 Dept.: Sheriff Location: undertermined Completion Date: 1992-93 Description: Construction of additional sentenced facilities (400 beds) Amount: $41,000,000 Rank: 2 Dept.: Mental Health Location: Camarillo Completion Date: 1993-94 Description: Children’s Crisis Center (county share) Amount: $4,000,000 Rank: 3 Dept.: Health Care Agency Location: HCA Complex Completion Date: 1990-91 Description: Mental Health Impatient Expansion Amount: $3,200,000 Rank: 4 Dept.: Sheriff Location: Pre-trial Dentention Completion Date: 1990-91 Description: Emergency Operation Center Improvements Amount: $600,000 Rank: 5 Dept.: Courts Location: HOJ/HOA Completion Date: 1990-91 Description: New Smoke Alarm/ Sprinkler System Amount: $200,000 Rank: 6 Dept.: General Services Agency/Sheriff Location: Pre-Trial Dentention Completion Date: 1990-91 Description: Boiler Gas Burner Conversion Amount: $200,000 Rank: 7 Dept.: GSA Location: Gov’t Center Completion Date: 1990-91 Description: Roof access stairway for Service Bldg. Amount: $60,000 Rank: 8 Dept.: GSA Location: Telephone Road Completion Date: 1990-91 Description: Roof access stairway for Telephone Rd. Amount: $50,000 Rank: 9 Dept.: GSA Location: Simi Library Completion Date: 1990-91 Description: Roof Access Amount: $60,000 Rank: 10 Dept.: HCA Location: HCA Complex Completion Date: 1991-92 Description: New Medical Examiner Facility Amount: $2,000,000