Budget Cuts Cost Area Legislators 16 Staff Members

Budget cutting required by Proposition 140, the term-limitation initiative approved by anti-incumbent voters in November, has stirred an exodus of experienced staff members from state Senate and Assembly offices in Ventura County.

So far, the five state lawmakers who represent portions of the county have lost 16 full- and part-time people, nearly a third of their office staffs. Some legislators fear that their offices may be too shorthanded to keep up with constituent demands.

Nearly all of these legislative aides, caseworkers and secretaries were helped on their way by five months of severance pay or a “golden-handshake” bonus for early retirement. These incentives were offered to encourage staff members to leave so that the Legislature could meet a 40% budget reduction required by Proposition 140.

But with their departure went much of legislative staffs’ long-term memory, contacts in the community and knowledge of how to solve recurring problems, legislators say.

“It hurts that I’m losing a lot of my really experienced people,” said Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley). Wright recently lost the administrator of her Simi Valley office and her top legislative aide in Sacramento, a woman who had been with Wright since she was first elected to the Assembly in 1980.

“People are going to have to have patience with us, because we are going to be overloaded and not able to process their problems as quickly as we used to,” Wright said.

Office staff members provide what legislators consider valuable service in steering constituents through the state bureaucratic maze. The staff can also benefit lawmakers politically by speaking to groups and representing them at ceremonial functions.

Some confide that it has been a painful experience in the last few weeks watching longtime and otherwise loyal employees slip out the door before the budget cuts bring on tougher times.

Taking exception to such notions is Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), the lone supporter of Proposition 140 in the county’s delegation. McClintock, a fiscal conservative, said he was able to eliminate 1 1/2 positions in his office by making his operation more efficient, just as is done in the private sector.

“I don’t know why legislators are throwing such a conniption fit over this,” McClintock said. “This is something that businesses undergo every day. I find all of this hair pulling rather distasteful.”

Furthermore, McClintock said the Legislature is not losing its most experienced staff because of Proposition 140. Instead, he said, top staffers have been leaving to take advantage of generous severance pay.

Some of the best-paid staff members in Sacramento collected as much as $30,000 in severance pay.

For state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), however, the wave of budget cuts has forced the closure of one of his three offices in his sprawling district that stretches from Santa Barbara County across Ventura County to the western portions of Los Angeles County.

To meet budget reductions, Hart closed his Woodland Hills office, releasing two staff members there. His Ventura office is supposed to pick up the slack, even though two of its three staff members have taken advantage of severance pay or early retirement.

Bob Borrego, a former Santa Paula Elementary School Board member and leader in the county’s Latino community, is one of the Ventura employees leaving. He has worked for Hart and Hart’s predecessor, former state Sen. Omer Rains (D-Ventura), for more than 16 years.

“We are losing our institutional memory and a lot of talent,” said Beverly O’Gorman, Hart’s administrative assistant and only remaining staff member in Ventura.

One morning last week, the phones rang incessantly, as O’Gorman looked uneasily at the stacks of paper beginning to pile up on her desk. “We get about 15 to 20 letters a day and 50 to 60 phone calls,” she said. “Some of the questions are relatively easy to answer, like ‘Who’s the governor and what’s his address?’ Others take a lot more time.”

O’Gorman has arranged for interns from nearby community colleges to help answer phones and has lined up retirees as volunteers, including former Star-Free Press Editor Julius Gius.

Yet some tasks, she said, need the attention of full-time staff well-steeped in the art of trouble-shooting.

For example, O’Gorman recently persuaded Denti-Cal, the state’s dental-insurance program for the poor, to buy a new set of dentures for an 81-year-old woman when hers disappeared with a breakfast tray at an Oxnard retirement home.

Denti-Cal’s computer had refused prepayment because state rules allow replacement teeth once every five years. In the interim, the woman was forced to subsist on liquid food.

Hart said he is troubled that his constituents in Malibu and Canoga Park no longer have an office nearby. “The sad commentary is that the people who call tend to be desperate and don’t have the financial resources to hire an attorney or have the wherewithal to figure out what they need to do,” Hart said.

The cutbacks have occurred because California voters approved Proposition 140 last November by a 52% to 48% margin. Conservatives pushed the ballot initiative at a time of swelling anti-incumbent sentiment among voters. Most of the advertising highlighted a provision to limit Assembly members to six years in office and state Senators to eight.

But Proposition 140 also eliminated state-run pensions for lawmakers and required a 40% cut in the Legislature’s $164-million budget. The 80-member Assembly will absorb 58.8% of the cuts and the 40-member Senate 41.2%. Although the reductions need not be made until July 1, both chambers decided to offer incentives to encourage people to leave.

All members of the Assembly had their individual office budgets reduced from $287,000 last year to $200,900 this year, said Bob Connelly, chief administrative officer of the Assembly Rules Committee. The budget covers salaries, office supplies, mail, rent, and telephone and utility bills.

“That means Assembly members have to ask staff to leave or give them all a reduction in pay,” Connelly said. “That translates into mail not being answered or phone calls not returned--because that is what the district offices do.”

The Senate has a different set of rules for trimming costs, tailored to each senator, said Cliff Berg, executive officer of the Senate Rules Committee. “My guess is that we are going to have to lay off another 100 (legislative) employees before we reach our goal.”

So far, state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) has lost two employees, a secretary in Sacramento and Sheila Holt, his field representative for Ventura County.

“It will certainly affect our ability to represent all aspects of our district,” said Hunt Braly, Davis’ chief of staff. “It is tough times with all of the budget cuts.”

Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) lost six of his 15 staff members, including Jeff Bowling, a legislative assistant in charge of his Oxnard office. “We are down to one person in Oxnard, but we are going to try to replace Jeff,” O’Connell said.

Sudden departures have created chaos in some offices. In addition to the shortfall, it will take time, lawmakers and their staff say, for those few replacements to learn the ropes.

“It’s been crazy around here,” said Carla Frisk, administrator of O’Connell’s Santa Barbara office. Left alone in the office earlier this month, Frisk said she is now trying to train a new assistant between phone calls. “We are having trouble just keeping our heads above water.”