County’s Already-Trimmed Budget Faces a New Deficit : Economy: A further $14-million shortfall is projected. The new revelation comes after recent painful cuts.

San Diego County’s budget, balanced this month after painful cutbacks in mental health, probation and custodial services, suddenly faces another shortfall of about $14 million, county administrators said Monday.

The latest dose of red ink probably will not produce further program reductions but could force more staff cuts or a freeze on automobile and other equipment purchases, officials acknowledged.

“If what the auditor says in his preliminary estimate turns out to be true, we’ve got a hell of a problem that we’ll have to manage throughout the year,” said Manuel Lopez, director of the county’s office of financial management.

“That’s incredible,” said Eliseo Medina, executive director of a labor coalition representing 10,000 county workers, when informed of the new deficit. “They don’t know how to count.”

Nevertheless, the supervisors will vote to approve a “balanced” fiscal 1991-92 budget of $1.9 billion today--the last day allowed by state law, Lopez said. County number-crunchers will then delve into the budget again before bringing recommendations for further cuts before the board within a few weeks, he said.

The county’s second budget crisis was brought on by over-optimistic predictions for the budget’s “fund balance,” the leftover revenue carried from the fiscal 1990-91 budget into the 1991-92 budget, which began July 1.

County budget planners counted on $20.9 million in revenue from last fiscal year’s budget, but will receive about $6.9 million when the books are closed, said Robert Powell, the county’s deputy auditor and controller.

Powell said that auditing of last year’s budget should be completed by this weekend, without any substantial changes in the leftover funds. Lopez expressed hope that the figure might be closer to $8 million when the books are finally closed.

“I think we were overly optimistic in May,” when the $20.9 million figure was built into the 1991-92 budget, Powell said. “It was just a very tough fiscal year.” For at least the last five fiscal years, the actual leftover revenue has exceeded predictions, said John MacDonald, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.

County officials said they still aren’t sure how much revenue to expect from the state, a wrinkle that further complicates the budgeting task.

Assistant Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen attributed the new shortfall to the county’s continuing bailout of the County Medical Services program for the indigent, mid-year budget additions for the Sheriff’s Department and the continued sluggish economy, which held down the growth in property tax revenue.

Throughout the county’s wrenching budget deliberations, which concluded two weeks ago with $18 million in cuts, administrators warned that the amount of carry-over revenue was still in question.

The gap in the county’s $589.9-million operating budget was closed only through sharp cutbacks in services at the county psychiatric center, closure of two Probation Department honor camps, the elimination of 50 custodial positions, spending delays and expenditures of one-time revenue. The county also has imposed a hiring freeze.

MacDonald said the most recent round of budget cuts has left the county little room for savings without reducing jobs. “If we have to cut another $10 million or $11 million, we’re going to have to cut quite a few people,” he said. “We don’t have any contingencies to cut.”

Janssen and Lopez declined to predict how the shortfall will be made up, but Lopez appeared to be leaning toward a freeze in all expenditures not deemed absolutely critical.

“The budget would be unbalanced, so what we have to do is go in there and freeze current appropriations,” he said.

Medina, whose organization unsuccessfully demanded cuts this summer in what it called “management perks,” said he will renew attempts to have the board of supervisors decrease spending without cutting more jobs.

“Obviously that just makes it much more critical to work with employee organizations to come up with a (solution),” he said.