1,500 Opt for County’s Early Retirement Plan : Government: Budget-cutting move hits hardest at departments of health and social services, which lose at least 928 employees.

Los Angeles County’s government work force shrank dramatically Friday as more than 1,500 employees in public hospitals, the welfare department and other agencies took advantage of an early retirement program meant to ease the county’s budget woes.

Hardest hit was the Department of Health Services, which lost at least 505 employees, including 148 at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. The Department of Public Social Services lost 423 employees, about 5% of its work force.

Friday was the last day for the county’s 80,000 employees to apply for the program, which was created by the Board of Supervisors in September to help close the county’s $588-million budget shortfall.

Though many early retirees had already left, Friday was the last official day for hundreds of others, many with 30 or more years of service. Some will remain on the job in the coming weeks to wrap up unfinished business.

Irv Cohen, finance director at the Department of Health Services and one of the county’s most respected administrators, left work in the afternoon, having finished his last day on the job after 33 years.

“Thirty-three years is enough time,” said Cohen, 51. “I thought it was time to try something else, something that’s a little less stressful.”

Cohen spent much of his last day tallying the number of health department employees who will follow him into retirement. As of noon, the retirement list included 57 employees at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, 53 at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and 79 in clinics throughout the county.

In recent days, going-away receptions and farewells have become common at County-USC, said Harvey Kern, director of public affairs.

“It’s a very nostalgic time here for many of us,” Kern said. “We regret the loss of many of our outstanding staff. They are very talented and have made great contributions to the medical center.”

Kern added: “We are used to coping with difficult situations, and we will certainly cope with this one.”

Law enforcement was also hit hard, with 62 sheriff’s deputies and civilian employees opting for the retirement plan. A hiring slowdown and previous budget cuts brought the department down to 7,817 sworn officers, contrasted with a high of about 8,400 just two years ago, a department spokesman said.

In many county departments, employees continued to apply for the program late into the afternoon, trying to beat a 5 p.m. deadline. A final tally of the retirees will not be available until next week.

“We’ve had a number of last-minute applications,” said Arnold Fogelman, spokesman for the Internal Services Department, which provides custodial and other maintenance services to county facilities.

In all, 185 department employees had opted for early retirement by late Friday, a 5% reduction in the agency’s work force.

Another 192 employees chose retirement in the Probation Department, including more than 100 sworn probation officers. In the Department of Mental Health, 42 people signed up for the program, dropping the agency’s work force below 1,000 for the first time in years.

The retirements are only the latest in a series of cutbacks that have plagued county mental health services in recent years.

“We’ve had to make quite a bit of reassignments to keep services going,” said Areta Crowell, the department’s director. “We are just able to see less and less (mentally ill) people as time goes by.”