Union Coalition Offers Alternative to County Layoffs, Service Reductions

A coalition of unions representing 65,000 Los Angeles County government workers Friday proposed a plan that calls for solving the county’s budget crisis without layoffs or pay cuts.

The budget-balancing alternative lists 80 cost-cutting measures, from billing local police when the Sheriff’s Department provides assistance to eliminating take-home use of county cars.

Union officials contended that their proposal would close a $586-million gap in the county’s $13-billion budget without cutting services or forcing rank-and-file employees to take pay cuts.

“The solution is cutting unnecessary administrative expenses,” said Bud Treece, executive director of the Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs.

The unions sent the Board of Supervisors their list, including a recommendation for greater oversight of county expenditures to prevent “uncontrolled spending orgies” by top bureaucrats.

“We are not persuaded that a true cost-conscious attitude prevails through the county,” the union said.

While agreeing to consider the proposals, county officials expressed doubt that the nation’s most populous county could absorb state budget cuts without reducing county-run services such as public hospitals and welfare programs that primarily serve the poor.

“Anybody who thinks there is any solution to this budget problem other than good old-fashioned cuts just is kidding themselves,” said Richard B. Dixon, the county’s chief administrative officer.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, an ally of the county labor unions, agreed that cuts in services are inevitable. But he said the union proposal is “worth looking at.”

The plan was presented by 13 county employee organizations, including the largest--Service Employees International Union, Local 660, which represents 43,000 county employees. Others supporting the proposal included the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the Joint Council of Interns and Residents and the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Assn.

Local 660, which organized a two-day nurses’ strike last fall that crippled county hospitals, has asked its members to pack the Board of Supervisors’ meeting on Sept. 15 to show support for the union plan.

The union-sponsored proposal is an alternative to a plan by Dixon to force county employees to work two days a month without pay or take off two days a month without pay, which would reduce the paycheck of the average county worker about 10%.

Dixon has said his plan would save the county $250 million annually.

The union’s 30-page report calls for eliminating car phones, cutting back employee travel and freezing county-paid health insurance benefits for management and other non-union employees. Also proposed is elimination of drug testing of sheriff’s deputies.

The proposal also calls for raising at least $73 million through new or higher fees and taxes, including reinstating a tax on amusement park admissions and levying a business tax in unincorporated territory. The unions also recommended that the Sheriff’s Department bill cities when sending in special units such as SWAT teams or bomb squads to assist local police.

Edelman expressed concern about the union proposal to freeze county-paid health insurance for management and other non-union employees.

“I don’t like to see non-represented pitted against represented employees,” he said. Union officials, however, contend that non-union workers already receive better benefits.