Budget Cuts Will Be Deep for North L.A. County : Government: The tight spending proposal may affect staffing for 18 nature areas and curtail plans for 19 juvenile probation camps.

The anticipated $2.2-billion gap between desire and reality in the Los Angeles County budget would result in deep slashes in services to the valleys of the northern part of the county.

Among the cuts are a few programs that narrowly escaped the budget guillotine in 1991--particularly staffing for 18 nature areas, including Placerita Canyon in Newhall, and maintenance of more than 300 miles of equestrian and hiking trails, many of which snake through the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Gone too under the proposed budget are 19 juvenile probation camps, including a firefighting camp in Tujunga. Only the brand-new Challenger Memorial Youth Center in Lancaster would be preserved, although how it would be used remains undecided.

A probation officer at Camp Louis Routh in Tujunga, who asked not to be identified, said closing the camps seemed particularly ill-advised in the wake of the King verdict riots. “We thought it was pretty insane to talk about cutting it even before,” he said. “But they would really be nuts to do it now.”

On the plus side for the valleys, the proposed budget calls for establishing a new social service center in Van Nuys aimed at keeping troubled families together. The Mid-Valley Family Service Center would be a collaboration among county mental health, children’s services, probation and health services departments.

County Management Analyst Robert Plasky said county officials believe the center would more than pay for itself--an estimated $189,000 would be spent this year--by avoiding the additional costs incurred when children are taken away from their parents.

The proposed Emergency Preparedness and Response budget also includes additional training programs for swift-water rescue, a reaction to the drowning death of a 15-year-old Woodland Hills boy in the Los Angeles River and several near-drownings during the winter floods.

And, because they are financed through bonds and other earmarked funds, such large-scale construction projects as the Antelope Valley Courthouse, the High Desert Hospital and expansion of San Fernando Juvenile Hall also are expected to continue on schedule.

However, the lean nature of the proposed budget raised the question of whether the county will be able to afford to run the facilities once they are built.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, who represents most of the San Fernando Valley, said that during budget deliberations later this summer the board may “need to take another look at capital projects and our ability to staff them in light of our present problems.”

For instance, no recreation or maintenance workers were approved in the proposed budget for the Santa Clarita Valley Sport Center near Castaic Lake. Yet three ball fields and a picnic area are scheduled to be built this year with state bond funds and developer fees. Future years would bring a swimming pool, tennis courts and a gymnasium.

“We still plan to go forward with it and hope it will be given consideration to be staffed,” said Jim Okimoto, senior assistant director of the county Department of Parks and Recreation. “If not, we would have to . . . spread what we’ve got even thinner.”

Among the other budget proposals affecting the valleys:

* No funding for an additional welfare office in the San Fernando Valley. The number of employees at the existing East Valley office--already considered understaffed--would probably be cut to meet a 300-employee countywide cutback in welfare.

* No augmentation in budgets for San Fernando Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and the two other juvenile halls, requested to improve security and handle an anticipated increase in juvenile offenders.

* No increases in grants to the West Valley Symphony and the Glendale Symphony Orchestra, although both would receive about what they did in 1991, $2,500 and $19,000.

* Cuts in park operations budgets at Castaic, Val Verde and Bouquet Canyon parks, among others. Parks officials said hours might have to be reduced and upkeep would be reduced.

* Additional employees for new libraries in Calabasas, Lake Los Angeles and Westlake Village, although those libraries could also face shorter hours and an overall 12% cut in book budgets proposed for all county libraries.

* Support for a satellite campus for nurses at Olive View Medical Center, but cuts in budgets for hiring temporary nurses.

* Increased expenditures in the Antelope Valley by the Department of Public Works to build water pumping plants to service new water customers as development continues in that area.

* Expansion of transit services to the Antelope Valley, such as buses and dial-a-ride systems.

* Continued planning analyses for the communities of Malibu Lake, a hamlet in the Santa Monica Mountains, and Val Verde in the Santa Clarita Valley, which are listed among six priority areas. MAIN STORY: A1