Supervisors OK Money for Welfare Payments : Budgets: With the state withholding payment to the county, the emergency action guarantees that 8,000 families will get their checks by July 15.

Furious about state delays in adopting a new budget, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $2.4-million emergency loan that allows 8,000 welfare families in Ventura County to receive mid-July payments as scheduled.

Checks of about $330 each will be mailed Friday to households with about 25,000 members, two-thirds of them children, county officials said.

The $2.4 million will come from the county general fund unless the Legislature and Gov. George Deukmejian resolve their budget impasse by the end of the week.

Though struggling with a tight budget, county administrators said they have the money to make the Aid to Families With Dependent Children payments by July 15.

But supervisors balked at bailing out the state, because it has missed its June 30 budget deadline four straight years and has failed to set aside money to make July social service payments each time.

“They ought to throw out about two-thirds of both bodies and start all over,” Supervisor James R. Dougherty said, lashing out at the Assembly and state Senate. “But that isn’t enough for me to take food out of the mouths of children.”

Chairwoman Madge L. Schaefer said she wanted to refuse payment to make the point that the county is not the state’s bank, but decided that only the poor would have suffered from such a decision.

“If you want to teach the state a lesson, go ahead” and withhold payments, agreed Supervisor Susan Lacey. “But what will we be teaching these kids?”

The board approved the short-term loan 4 to 0, acting on the recommendation of James E. Isom, county social services director. He warned supervisors that withholding the payments might be illegal.

Isom said the state is withholding not only its payments to welfare families, but federal funds as well. He noted that the state is drawing interest on the money, while the county stands to lose thousands of dollars in interest on the $2.4 million it is lending the state.

The federal government usually provides about 50% of the aid to families with dependent children, the state about 45% and the county 5%, he said.

In an interview, Isom criticized state lawmakers for ensuring the continued flow of their own paychecks but not the benefits of the poor.

“I don’t imagine the governor got shorted, or any of the legislators,” Isom said. “Everybody is paid but the counties and the recipients of public assistance.”

County Auditor Norman R. Hawkes, who had refused to make the payments with county money without the supervisors’ authorization, said Tuesday that the county should press the issue by forming a task force to work with state officials.

“I know it sounds like rhetoric, we’ve gone through it a hundred times,” Hawkes said. And Supervisor John K. Flynn was skeptical.

“How do you communicate with the Legislature?” Flynn asked. “I tried once to post something on the governor’s door, but they came out immediately and took it down.”

In the days before Tuesday’s vote, supervisors had said they wanted no repeat of 1983, when local welfare families got mid-July checks nearly a week late because state lawmakers failed to approve a budget until July 21.

State budget negotiations have been even more difficult this year, as the mostly Democratic Legislature has struggled with $3.6 billion in cuts recommended by Deukmejian.

County officials throughout the state have had to react because the budget impasse has shut off the flow of state funds on which they depend so heavily.

In Ventura County, the greatest problem has been the delay of paychecks to people who provide in-home care for 1,350 disabled and elderly residents.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of dollars collected by the state in sales taxes and motor vehicle fees are overdue. At the county Public Social Services Agency alone, about $700,000 to pay for administration of state programs has not arrived, officials said.

Budget Crunch: The state Legislature struggles with plan for tax increases, budget cuts. A1