Services to the Poor Safe This Year, Officials Say

Assembly-passed legislation that would give counties greater flexibility in cutting health and welfare services to the poor is unlikely to hurt Ventura County indigent residents this year, officials said Friday.

The two-bill package, which the Assembly approved Thursday, would allow counties to reduce services that the state has required but that are paid for substantially out of local funds.

The bills would allow counties to impose stricter requirements for recipients of general relief and to reduce the size of relief payments. It would also allow counties to cut medical services for the indigent more easily, and would free counties from the need to match higher “community standards” for the medical services the counties provide.

Ventura County officials have urged the state for years to give them more freedom in cutting benefits of mandatory programs, saying the costs of such programs have increasingly threatened the county’s ability to pay.

Despite the greater flexibility the measure potentially gives the county, Supervisor John K. Flynn said Friday that the Board of Supervisors is unlikely to rework the $791-million budget it approved Tuesday.

Up to 100 county employees face layoffs under terms of the approved budget, which cut most deeply into the Fire Department, library services and social services.

Supervisors approved the cuts to offset an expected $10-million loss of state funding, which was based on $475 million in cuts to local governments proposed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Democratic leaders have urged cuts in local revenues as high as $740 million. But Flynn said Friday the board would not have to find other ways to slash costs unless the final state budget called for cuts greater than $740 million to local governments.

“The mandated programs are often essential,” Flynn said in explaining why supervisors are unlikely to target them for cuts in the wake of the proposed state law.

Although county officials have complained about the burden of state-mandated programs, they said they are not sure precisely how much more they might save by cutting as much as the Assembly legislation would allow.

“Mandates are an issue that nobody’s been able to quantify,” said Phil Wessels, the county’s director of public health.

Of the $130 million spent on public health in the county, $80 million pays for the operation of the Ventura County Medical Center, and another $8 million for the county’s public health clinics.

But only a small portion of the department’s budget is paid from the county, Wessels said, with state and federal aid accounting for the rest.

Wessels said the hospital faces a $2-million deficit under the recently approved budget, but that cuts will be made without affecting health services.

The most vulnerable services under the Assembly bill would be the public health clinics, which provide health education and infectious disease prevention, as well as monitor the health of the county’s residents.

Wessels said he was confident the county would continue to maintain the current level of health services for the poor.

“There has been no discussion in Ventura County of closing the hospital or of major closures of our outpatient programs,” Wessels said.

Ventura County’s general relief program does not appear threatened by the change in state law either, officials said.

With just 460 individuals receiving $1.2 million in county support, most reductions allowed by the new bill are already part of the county’s public assistance program, said Helen Reburn, a deputy director of the program.

County policy already requires welfare recipients to seek job training and prove they have been looking for work, she said. And deductions are already made from the monthly stipend of $341 for recipients who are sharing expenses in housing, Reburn said.

“In terms of savings, the biggest impact will come from lowering the benefit amount by whatever the state agrees to reduce payments for Aid to Families With Dependent Children,” she said. General relief payments are keyed to these benefits.

Nancy Nazario, the county’s homeless services coordinator, said previous cuts in housing subsidies and health care have already “seriously compromised” the health of a growing homeless population.

“The problem is that government started cutting fat from the budget, then started to cut muscle, and now they’re sawing on the bone,” Nazario said.

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