Supervisors Request Added 5% Budget Cuts : Spending: Officials say the new reductions in general services are necessary to spare law enforcement.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday asked all county managers except law enforcement officials to prepare to slice an additional 5% from their budgets, on top of 10% to 12.5% in cuts already planned for the 1993-94 fiscal year.

The supervisors agreed that they must cut more deeply into general government services in order to buffer the county’s justice system from sharp reductions, as they have in years past.

“If we cut everyone by 10% to 12.5%, we would be OK,” Supervisor Maria VanderKolk said. “But if the board doesn’t want to take a 10% cut out of criminal justice, we are going to have to take it out of other areas.”

And in an effort to cut spending still further, the board agreed during a special meeting on Wednesday to eliminate longevity pay to new county employees, although workers who have been receiving the perk will continue to get it.

Currently, about 550 county managers are scheduled to split $2.1 million in longevity pay next week. The perk, adopted by the board in 1989, has been used as an incentive to encourage ranking employees to stay with the county. For every year over five years that employees are on the job, they receive one day in longevity pay each year. They can earn up to 13 days extra pay annually.

Although Supervisor John K. Flynn said he would have preferred to eliminate the perk completely, County Counsel James McBride warned the supervisors that they could not take away the benefit from employees who had already earned it.

As a result, starting July 4, new employees will not qualify for the benefit.

“We have to use this opportunity to get rid of some of the things that should not be there,” Supervisor Vicky Howard said. “I feel very strongly that government should not have any extra benefits and perks.”

Flynn added: “We don’t need that kind of incentive today. The incentive is primarily to have employment.”

The supervisors are anticipating that they will need to cut up to $14 million in spending to balance a projected $806-million budget for fiscal year 1993-94, which begins today. At least 200 positions are expected to be eliminated.

The board members asked department heads to return with the additional 5% reductions on July 12, the start of the county’s budget hearings.

In February, the supervisors ordered the original reductions in anticipation of sharp losses in state funding. While other departments were asked to propose cuts ranging from 10% to 12.5%, the supervisors told law enforcement officials to outline reductions ranging from 7.5% to 10%.

Over the past few months, the administrators have detailed for the supervisors the toll the cuts would take on their departments. Administrators have warned that they would be forced to cut salaries of assistants, lay off custodians and find cheaper ways to print election ballots.

Sheriff Larry Carpenter warned the supervisors that to absorb a 10% budget cut, he would have to end routine investigations of all but the most serious crimes, close down the jail in the east county and lay off up to 30 workers. Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said he would no longer be able to prosecute misdemeanors if his budget is reduced by 10%.

But under considerable public pressure, the majority of the supervisors said they believed it would be impractical to severely cut into the criminal-justice system. The other areas of government, they said, would have to bear the brunt of the reductions.

“It’s the philosophy of the county that we live in,” Howard said. “It’s a very law-abiding community. We have a very low crime rate and it’s very precious to us.”

However, several county department heads said employees are becoming increasingly resentful that the supervisors plan to buffer law enforcement from the steep reductions.

“They have to bow to the pressure,” said Kathy Jenks, director of the county’s Animal Regulation Department. “Now, they are getting a lot of heat because the little (sheriff’s) deputies are walking door-to-door crying the blues.

“I don’t want to sound like a whiner like the rest of them. I understand the supervisors’ dilemma. . . . We’ll make the cuts.”