At Best, Budget Chops Library, Fire Services : Shortfall: At worst, county faces $120 million more in cuts than current plan’s $80 million. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ says budget director.

A new accounting of the county budget crisis released Thursday calls for all libraries to close on Fridays--and some to close three days a week--the elimination of two fire stations and the loss of up to 450 county jobs.

“This has to be the worst budget I’ve ever participated in,” said county Budget Director Ronald S. Rubino. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The report says that $80 million in cuts would be split almost evenly between general fund and special districts. That would mean closing all 27 libraries at least one day a week to save $3.8 million. Another $11.5 million in cuts is proposed for the Orange County Fire Department, which would lose 148 jobs, or nearly 20% of its full-time work force in addition to the station closures, officials said.

The county budget is about $500 million. Rubino said there were no immediate estimates of how many actual layoffs would be required countywide with the elimination of up to 450 positions.

The report, to be submitted on Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors, actually represents a “best-case” scenario for the county and is extremely vulnerable to “wild deficit swings,” given proposals by state officials to use more local funds to balance their own multibillion-dollar shortfall.

Under the worst of conditions, Rubino said, it was possible that the county would be forced to make another $120 million in cuts on top of the $80 million, depending on a proposed state action that would shift $2.1 billion in local property taxes to the state’s public school system. Those taxes now fund county and special district services.

“It’s just a property tax grab by the state,” Rubino said. “It’s a devastating game they are playing. As bad as it is, it could get worse.”

It is “very likely,” the budget director said, that reductions to county library services could be implemented within the first week of July. Currently, the county’s libraries are open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Under the current plan, the county’s three regional libraries in Irvine, Garden Grove and San Juan Capistrano would be open two days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and three days from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

In addition, eight of the county’s 24 branch libraries would be open only three days each week, with significant cuts to evening hours. At the Leisure World branch in Seal Beach, for example, officials have proposed eliminating evening hours altogether.

For fire services, Rubino said, officials would use reserve funds for at least a few more months to keep the system’s 48 stations at full staffing levels. It was not known which stations would be closed if the cuts are implemented.

“It’s a real bummer,” Rubino said, “a terrible cut. This is real stuff here.”

The local report comes just one day after Sheriff Brad Gates threatened to close the James A. Musick Branch Jail near Irvine and forgo the staffing of a 400-bed expansion at the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange in order to make up $6.5 million in proposed cuts to his department.

The sheriff’s recommendations were included in the overall county report released late Thursday afternoon.

Surveying the proposed fiscal damage, Supervisor William G. Steiner said Thursday that he was particularly troubled over recommended cuts to health care services that now total nearly $5 million. Of that total, about $2 million has been targeted for mental health services, and includes a reduction of social services for the mentally ill and an unknown cut in the number of beds for acutely ill patients.

“Health care needs continue to get greater every year,” Steiner said. “It’s very difficult to plan anything given the situation with the state.”

Rubino said it was likely that the county would have to review all of its present recommendations once a state budget is approved.