County Approves $686-Million Budget : Supervisors: Balancing is achieved only after the board passes along $5.8 million in state cuts, the majority in the health, mental health and probation departments and the public defender’s office.

Despite sharp cuts in state funding, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Friday approved a $686-million budget for 1990-91 that increases spending by 12%, provides for an additional 27 county workers and maintains current levels of service in most departments.

The fiscal plan boosts by $43 million--to $392 million--the general fund portion of the budget over which the supervisors have the most control.

The budget was balanced, however, only after the board passed along $5.8 million in state cuts, the majority in the health, mental health and probation departments and the public defender’s office.

And it leaves only $1 million--one-tenth of the recommended amount--in reserve for emergencies during the fiscal year ending next June 30.

Also, the board allocated only $3 million for construction of new county buildings, compared with department requests of $38 million.

While the increased spending suggests financial health, officials said rapid growth and surging demand for services have outstripped the county’s ability to pay for them.

“We’ve been hit so hard by the state for so long we’re almost numb to it, and we can scrape things together better than most counties,” said Richard Wittenberg, county chief administrative officer. “We’re just trying to hold our services together.”

At Friday’s budget hearing, the supervisors endorsed millions of dollars in new fees on area cities and school districts, a move expected to be attacked before being formally implemented in September.

But the board did not include the annual fees of $5 million to $8 million in its budget. The county intends to collect fees from cities for the booking of prisoners at the County Jail and to charge cities, schools and special districts for property tax collection.

But the money cannot be counted on yet, board members said, because projections of revenues are preliminary.

Because of the anticipated fees, the four departments that bore the brunt of the state cuts may be able to maintain programs that were slashed or revive them after Jan. 1, when the charges become effective.

The hardest-hit programs stand to receive some relief as early as September, getting $2.5 million from a special fund the supervisors created by transferring money from the county’s emergency account.

“We were able to spread the pain so that no one was totally devastated,” Chairwoman Madge L. Schaefer said.

For now, the department hurt most by the cuts is the Mental Health Agency, which lost one-third of its $4-million budget for an innovative program that the state has supported as a model for helping the mentally ill while keeping them out of expensive institutions.

Agency Director Randall Feltman said the cuts are false savings for taxpayers, since the model program was created in 1989 to treat mental patients for a fraction of the $50,000 a year it costs to hospitalize them.

Dozens of patients who could have been in the expanded program will not be served, he said.

“This is the worst thing I could imagine happening to us,” Feltman told the supervisors. “This will lead to more people in hospitals, more complaints from the police and more uproars downtown caused by people who should be in this program.”

Yet, the mental health agency scored two victories when supervisors set aside $3 million to help build an apartment project for the homeless mentally ill in Camarillo and a 44-bed locked ward for dangerous patients in Ventura.

Under the new budget, the Ventura County Medical Center must absorb a state-imposed cut of $2.7 million, which could shut down some of the 130 beds at the fast-growing hospital, Health Director Phillipp Wessels said.

As the number of poor and indigent patients continues to climb, Wessels said the cuts could also force the county hospital to turn away patients from its emergency room, maternity ward and operating rooms.

The hospital treats 3,000 to 4,000 patients a year, and some departments, such as obstetrics, have experienced 12% annual increases over the past two years, Wessels said.

“Other hospitals in the county will have to serve more people who don’t have insurance,” he predicted. “Our physicians will have to make difficult decisions as to who gets served . . . and make sure patients are out of the hospital as quickly as possible.”

The county juvenile probation division will be hit by cuts totaling $600,000.

But Frank Woodson, assistant director of correctional services, said he intends to forestall the elimination of two targeted programs--one for rehabilitation of first-time offenders and the other a safety net for delinquents leaving work camps--by not filling seven job vacancies.

“At this point we haven’t lost our programs, but there is a cloud over them,” Woodson said. One immediate casualty is a probation office that will be closed in Thousand Oaks, he said.

Sheila Gonzalez, chief administrator of the county court system, said elimination of state financing to rehabilitate juveniles is indefensible. “It’s criminal,” Gonzalez said at the hearing. “The state is sending a message that it is giving up on youth.”

Gonzalez, who initially feared that $2 million would be cut from county courts, said a new interpretation of the state budget showed cuts of only $179,000. The staffing of three courtrooms at a new $10-million courthouse in Simi Valley is now ensured, officials said.

The other major cut suffered by a county agency is $497,000 to reimburse the county for defending indigent murder defendants who face the death penalty. Wittenberg said the money probably will come from the $2.5-million special account created by the board.

While avoiding disabling cuts in any department, supervisors said they found no satisfaction in balancing this year’s budget.

“It was not a happy day,” Supervisor Maggie Erickson said after the meeting. “Often at the end of a budget, everyone heaves a big sigh of relief. This time we just kind of went away.”