Supervisors Endorse Plan for 5% Budget Cuts : Finances: The board will hold hearings before giving final approval. The proposal calls for eliminating 123 positions.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously backed a recommendation for 5% across-the-board cuts to balance Ventura County’s 1991-92 budget.

The final $729-million budget will be adopted in August after the supervisors hold public hearings and consider specific cuts and staff layoffs in each county department.

In addition to the 123 positions proposed for elimination in a summary budget released last week, the 223-page document offers new details of recommended cuts:

* $29,300 from the county clerk’s office by reducing the number of polling places from 470 to 387.

* $7,600 from the money the Ventura County Grand Jury uses to hire external auditors and investigators.

* $111,600 from the money the Municipal Court uses to hire extra staff for bookkeeping duties.

* $899,100 from the Sheriff’s Department by closing the Rose Valley Work Camp. The 60 to 90 inmates held at the minimum-security facility would be moved to other county jails.

* $46,500 from the county’s Animal Regulation Department, which would include the elimination of two animal-control officer positions.

* $37,600 from the Public Social Services Agency, which would include the elimination of one child welfare worker position.

Despite the 5% cost reductions in the general fund budget, an increase in state and federal funding for mandated programs will boost the county’s overall budget by 6.6%, from $684 million last year to $729 million.

The 5% cuts, which will save the county $7.2 million, were required to balance a $13.6-million deficit projected for the budget year that began Monday. The $6.4-million balance will be erased by savings made in the budget for the year just ended.

The budget proposed Tuesday by Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg calls for the elimination of 123 positions--including 11 from the district attorney’s office, four from the public defender’s office and 49 from the Sheriff’s Department.

The staff cuts recommended in the budget report were based on plans that each department head submitted to Wittenberg.

Several supervisors have said, however, that the board may adopt different ways of balancing the budget after members have studied the proposed reductions in each county program.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisors John K. Flynn and Susan Lacey suggested that some department heads may have offered to put popular county services under the budget ax in hopes that supervisors will be unwilling to make cuts in those departments.

Lacey warned department heads that they should be ready to live with the cuts they suggested.

“If anyone has put forth proposals that they really didn’t mean to support, I suggest they revise them,” Lacey said. She declined to name any specific department.

Flynn said some department heads have “publicized the reductions that we are recommending to put political pressure on the board.” Flynn also declined to identify any specific department.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury and Sheriff John Gillespie have been the most vociferous of the department heads in protesting the 5% cuts. Both have said that cuts in the county’s law enforcement agencies would jeopardize public safety.

However, neither Flynn nor Lacey criticized Bradbury or Gillespie.

“What I was talking about, generally speaking, was agency heads who somehow go to the news media and list programs to cut that would be very difficult to cut,” Flynn said after the meeting.

The recommended budget includes a $7-million contingency fund that can be used to pay for unforeseen expenses and salary and benefits increases.

The budget also includes a $4-million emergency reserve fund that was created when the supervisors ordered departments to cut costs by 6% last year.

Wittenberg said the county relies on state funding for 40% of its budget and that until the Legislature agrees on a way to erase the state’s $14-billion deficit, the county’s budget is far from secure.

“We are not in control of our own destiny,” he said. “I wish we were.”

County Budget Analyst Bert Bigler said departments will not lay off any workers until the final budget has been adopted.

Other positions targeted for elimination include eight in the county assessor’s office, nine in the maintenance staff of the General Services Agency, two in the county Building and Safety Department and five from the county’s Health Care Agency, including a medical examiner and a public health worker.

While he could not provide specific numbers, Bigler said many of the positions are now vacant. He said the county will try to avoid layoffs by eliminating occupied positions through attrition, transfers and other means.