O.C. Paying a Premium for Budget Overtime : Deficit: Delay in Sacramento has cost county $30 million and counting. ‘I’m depressed,’ says beleaguered budget director.

The budget logjam in Sacramento has already cost Orange County more than $30 million in lost revenue, and the tab could grow by the time a final deal is hammered out, county officials said Tuesday.

“I’m depressed,” said Ronald S. Rubino, the county’s budget director. “They’ve compounded an already bad situation and made it intolerable.”

The potential loss of an additional $30 million threatens to catapult the prognosis of the county budget from bad to worse. Already officials have been predicting a shortfall in the coming budget of about $65 million, a record deficit projection for Orange County.

To make ends meet, members of the County Board of Supervisors are pondering a variety of unpleasant options. A government hiring freeze imposed last year may be extended, social service and health care programs may see only modest increases, and construction projects such as an earthquake retrofit of the county courthouse may be put off another year.

Staffing for the expanded Theo Lacy Branch Jail, which officials say is badly needed to relieve the county jail overcrowding crisis, also is on the block, as are many other programs and projects.

The county begins its budget hearings later this month.

Meanwhile, however, state legislators are wrestling with their own $14.3-billion shortfall. In their effort to close the state gap, they have trimmed support for programs that benefit county governments.

Moreover, the time-consuming political wrangling in the capital has delayed tax hikes that will benefit county governments. Every day that new taxes have not taken effect is a day’s worth of revenue that does not make it to the government.

As part of their budget negotiations, state legislators have:

* Reduced money supplied to counties for court operations, potentially costing Orange County $20 million next year;

* Revoked counties’ rights to charge school districts for property-tax collection, which could cost local government $9 million more;

* Delayed imposition of a 1 1/4-cent sales tax hike by at least two weeks, which has stripped the county of $1.6 million so far. Further delays will run that tab higher.

“It’s a very explosive situation up there right now,” said Supervisor Don R. Roth, who has sounded warnings on the budget problem for months. “It’s going to be terrible.”

Roth and other county officials worry that the delays in Sacramento will only exacerbate the local budget problems, especially since the county government will soon be inheriting several state health care programs. The transfer of those programs, known as “realignment,” will leave the county responsible for administering services that provide health care and mental health care to poor and middle-income residents.

But local officials are concerned that realignment will dump under-funded programs on the county government and then force officials to decide whether to cut those programs or raise taxes.

“I call it ‘shift and shaft,’ ” Roth said. “People have been asking me for months if I’m crying wolf. I’m not. . . . This is the scariest thing.”