County Budget Plan Draws Fire From All Sides : Spending: There’s bad news for nearly everyone in the service cuts and revenue hikes through which a $67-million deficit would be eliminated.

County officials unveiled their proposed 1991-92 budget Tuesday and immediately came under fire from women, law enforcement officials, the district attorney and others who warned that some of the recommended spending cuts would gut critical county services.

The $3.5-billion budget proposal, which eliminates a $67.7-million deficit through a combination of service cuts and new revenue, included bad news for just about everyone it affects. And even though Tuesday’s session represented only the first day in a week of budget hearings, officials and community advocates expressed alarm and outrage at many of the suggestions that are being offered.

Although anxiety over the proposed budget was widespread, no one was more stunned than leaders of two longstanding county panels, the Commission on the Status of Women and the Human Relations Commission. Outright abolition was recommended for both groups.

“It’s just inconceivable to me that they would do this,” Jean Forbath, who chairs the Human Relations Commission, said after the board meeting. “We’re dealing with a rising number of hate crimes and so many other issues. We represent the powerless, and they need representation.”

Nina Hull, chairwoman of the Commission on the Status of Women, also urged board members to reconsider.

“I know these are difficult times,” she said. But “whether a program is mandated or not mandated, there are societal problems that must be met.”

Supervisors did not respond to advocates of either commission when they testified Tuesday, but Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, a stalwart supporter of the panels, said later that she will lobby to restore at least some of their funding.

“Why are social issues always back-burnered?” Wieder asked. “I am totally opposed to eliminating them.”

Opposition to the budget was not limited to the commission proposals. Among the more controversial aspects of the proposal:

* As many as 351 of the county’s 16,000 workers could lose their jobs, although the actual number is expected to be lower since many positions are already vacant.

* The Joplin Youth Center, which houses some of the county’s most serious juvenile offenders, would be closed, forcing the county to reduce the number of available beds at a time when gang and drug-related violence is increasing the demand for juvenile facilities.

* Law enforcement would be pared, and the Sheriff’s Department could lose 78 employees and its helicopter patrols.

* Highly commended “vertical prosecution units,” in which one deputy district attorney follows a case through the complete judicial process, might have to be abolished. Deputy district attorneys assigned to the program handle fewer cases than their colleagues.

* The only county-run shelter for the homeless would be closed, unless officials found a private donor who would pay to keep it in operation.

* Organizations that serve the county’s elderly and its veterans would be reduced by 25%, which translates into even larger cuts overall, since the state provides matching funds. The board balked at that recommendation, however, and suggested a 10% cut instead.

“There is no question we will have to do more with less,” Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez said in his opening remarks. “Drastic conditions require drastic action.”

In fact, about the only good news during a four-hour session was that health programs fared remarkably well. Some public health programs probably will be trimmed, and estimates indicate that the Health Care Agency would lose 36 positions. But those cuts can be absorbed with little disruption to the public, officials said.

“We begrudgingly but carefully made some cuts this year,” Health Care Agency Director Tom Uram said.

Other county officials were not so sanguine.

Sheriff Brad Gates said the proposed budget would hurt his ability to catch and arrest criminal suspects, Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said he would have a harder time prosecuting those suspects, and Chief Deputy Public Defender Carl Holmes said his office would have to turn over 9,000 additional cases to private attorneys.

The cuts also would take a toll on facilities designed to house criminals sentenced to serve jail time. The opening of the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange would be delayed until January, and the Joplin Youth Center for juvenile offenders would be closed after the first of the year.

“Any level of cut . . . would be painful to us,” said Michael Schumacher, the county’s chief probation officer, whose department oversees the juvenile facilities. “The problem is almost staggering.”

The 60-bed Joplin center, Schumacher said, has “helped thousands of young men turn their lives around.” Closing it, he added, might not even save the county money, since the state would charge the local government for juvenile inmates that it was forced to house as a result of the closure.

Although Gates told board members that he sympathized with their budget woes, he stressed that abolishing the helicopter patrol, as suggested by the county administrative office budget proposal, would badly hamper law enforcement.

“Narcotics work would essentially stop,” Gates said. “We can’t send our officers out there without that backup.”

Gates, who unlike most county department heads is an elected official, came away from the meeting with a promise from some board members that he would be allowed to make the cuts in his department as he sees fit.

Capizzi said the proposed cuts to his department, for which a 4.08% reduction was recommended, would “have a crippling effect on the district attorney’s office.”

“We’d have to do some amputation,” he added.

Budget hearings continue today and the rest of the week. A final budget is to be adopted on Aug. 27.

Government Services on the Line

The following is a selection of county government operations targeted for elimination or reduction in the 1991-92 fiscal year. County supervisors will adopt a final budget Aug. 27.

PROPOSED FOR ELIMINATION

Projected Jobs Savings Lost Sheriff’s helicopter patrol $716,000 8 Joplin Youth Center $984,000 35 Human Relations Commission $307,000 6 Commission on Status of Women $126,000 2 Homeless shelter at the armory $131,000 0 County public information office $339,000 7 Night health care in county branch jails $125,000 1

OTHER PROPOSED CUTS IN BUDGETS

Projected Jobs Savings Lost Reduction of county supervisors’ $336,000 0 staffs and supplies Withdrawal from Urban Counties Caucus * $40,000 0 Delaying County Courthouse $1.14 million 0 earthquake safety retrofit

Total budget shortfall: $67.7 million

New revenue (from state trial-court funding and reduced contributions to the employees’ retirement fund): $25.3 million

Total jobs eliminated: 351, for a savings of $21 million

* The caucus is a lobbying organization that works in Sacramento to promote the interests of large California counties.

Source: County administrative office, “Budget Workbook, FY 1991-92.”