Top Official Urges 5% Cut in County Budget : Finances: Across-the-board reductions would mean a loss of 123 positions. Law enforcement leaders protest the plan.

Ventura County’s top administrator recommended Wednesday that the county cut costs by 5% across-the-board--eliminating 123 positions in the process--to balance next year’s $405-million budget.

The announcement spurred protests from law enforcement officials, who said public safety would be jeopardized by across-the-board cuts in their departments.

By proposing the 5% budget cuts in a report to the Board of Supervisors, Ventura County Chief Administrator Richard Wittenberg backed away from 10% budget cuts that had been suggested earlier.

Administrators realized after making adjustments and paying bills at the end of the fiscal year that a 5% cut was all that was needed to balance the budget, said Bert Bigler, the county’s budget manager.

While he could not provide specific numbers, Bigler said the majority of the 123 positions that would be eliminated are now vacant.

For months, officials estimated that the county faced a $16-million deficit for the fiscal year that began Monday. However, after the year-end fund balances were collected, county administrators projected a deficit of $13.6 million.

The supervisors will discuss Wittenberg’s recommendation on Tuesday and will schedule several public hearings before adopting the final budget in the first week of August.

Supervisor John K. Flynn, a member of the board’s budget subcommittee, said further cuts may be needed if state legislators decide to pass on part of the state’s budget problems to counties.

“I suspect that we may have to make some more cuts,” he said. “But I hope we don’t.”

He added that any further cuts would probably target specific programs and would not be made on an across-the-board basis.

Supervisor Vicky Howard, who is also on the budget subcommittee, said she too is worried that the state’s budget may be balanced on the backs of the counties.

“We still don’t know what is happening with the state,” she said. “It’s very possible that things can fall apart up there.”

Howard said she does not support balancing budgets on an across-the-board basis and said the final cuts approved by the supervisors may be substantially different from those proposed by Wittenberg.

“We may come to some department and say: ‘This is a department that can’t take a 5% cut,’ ” she said.

Despite the news that a 10% cut is not needed, reactions to Wittenberg’s recommendation were somber.

Special Assistant Dist. Atty. Donald D. Coleman said the 5% cut would mean his agency would lose 14 attorneys and one law clerk, a loss that he said the county cannot afford.

“We certainly do not support any cuts that would harm the public security,” he said.

While he said he is glad that Wittenberg recommended a cut of 5% instead of 10%, he said Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury will lobby the supervisors to spare his office from the budget reductions.

“Making across-the-board cuts is not exercising real leadership,” Coleman said. “We think that priority should be placed with greater emphasis on public safety.”

Assistant Sheriff Richard Bryce agreed. He said his department would suffer the biggest cut: 49 positions, including 20 from the patrol division.

He said budget woes last year kept his department from hiring more workers to keep up with the county’s growing population and increasing crime. “The workload increased, but we got no one new,” he said.

Bryce said Sheriff John Gillespie will also urge the supervisors to spare the Sheriff’s Department from any cuts.

“We still feel somewhat optimistic that we will be able to convince the board that public safety is the No. 1 responsibility of government.”

Under the recommended 5% cuts, the county’s Health Care Agency would lose five positions, including a medical examiner and a public health worker. The county assessor’s office would lose eight positions, the chief administrative office would lose one position and the maintenance department would lose nine.