Budget Plan Will Devastate Social Services, Official Says : Finances: Since the 1985-86 fiscal year, the county’s caseload has more than doubled to 1.8 million people. The department’s staff already has been trimmed by 17%.

Benefit payments and services to Los Angeles County’s poorest residents--who make up about 20% of the population--will have to be slashed if supervisors stick to their budget proposal for the Department of Public Social Services, its director said Thursday.

Director Eddy Tanaka said the proposed $113-million cut in the agency’s budget will be devastating.

Any fat in the department’s budget, Tanaka said, has been eliminated in nearly a decade of unprecedented growth in welfare caseloads and a continuing decline in staffing.

Since the 1985-1986 fiscal year, the department’s caseload has more than doubled to 1.8 million people. Welfare caseloads--for such programs as Aid to Families With Dependent Children and General Relief--have set records for 51 consecutive months, department records show.

The population on public assistance in Los Angeles County exceeds the total population of cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit and San Diego, Tanaka said, citing U.S. census figures.

During the same eight-year period for which statistics were available, Tanaka said, his staff has been trimmed by 17% to 6,635.

The proposed budget calls for layoffs of at least 2,500 more workers, reducing the department’s staff to fewer than half the number needed, Tanaka said. The load for each caseworker has increased since 1985-1986 to more than 700 cases from 345.

“I can say categorically that the lines (of people seeking services) will extend for blocks,” Tanaka told the Board of Supervisors, which was holding its fourth consecutive day of hearings Thursday on its 1993-1994 fiscal year budget.

People seeking assistance must now wait in line for several hours before they can get inside a district office, Tanaka said. It could take an applicant 17 weeks to get paperwork processed if the cuts are adopted, Tanaka said.

County budget analysts acknowledged that the $113-million budget reduction proposed for the department would “drastically impair the timely processing of cases, increase the potential for errors, fraud and abuse . . . and significantly increase waiting times for new applicants.”

All department offices would have to be closed an additional day a week, Tanaka said.

Under the county’s proposed budget, the General Relief program--which serves single adults who do not qualify for any other form of public assistance--will be slashed by 27% to the state’s mandated minimum of $212 a month from $293. Those cuts will save the county $77.5 million annually.

But social service providers testified Thursday that even the cheapest housing on Skid Row costs about $230 a month.

The county lost more than $1.6 billion in funding for the fiscal year that began July 1--mostly because of the Legislature’s $2.6-billion shift in property taxes from local governments to school districts.

The recession also has cut deeply into county revenue.