Sheriff, District Attorney Offer Budget Proposal : County: Law enforcement officials would administer $2.5 million more in services, expanding areas of responsibility.

The Ventura County sheriff and district attorney promised Monday to administer $2.5 million more in county services, expanding their own domain and sparing other departments from crippling budget cuts.

After blasting the Board of Supervisors in news reports this weekend, the law enforcement officials offered a conciliatory note at a budget hearing as they unveiled plans to broaden the services their departments pay for.

Under the proposal, for instance, the sheriff would assume responsibility for the coroner’s office and its $920,000 budget. The district attorney would be responsible for representing children in court, a savings of $300,000 to the fund that pays for most county services. Both departments would do their own recruiting.

“We have attempted to be innovative, while at the same time recognizing the fiscal dilemma your board is facing,” Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury told the supervisors Monday morning.

The night before, appearing on a KADY-TV broadcast, he compared the board to an organized crime family laundering money.

Some supervisors said they were pleased with the prosecutor’s change of tone, but irritated that it was so long in coming.

“What you have done this morning is what we need to do,” said Supervisor Maggie Kildee, stifling her anger. “We should have had this a month ago. I don’t know why we had to go through two weeks of being bullied and badgered.”

The cost-cutting proposal is not without its problems, other county department heads maintained.

The coroner, who said he learned about the consolidation plan when Sheriff Larry Carpenter announced it Monday, feared the move would damage his department’s credibility.

“We do independent investigations of suspicious deaths,” said Ronald L. O’Halloran, the county’s medical examiner-coroner. “If the sheriff takes over control, we will try our best to be independent. But that doesn’t help the perception with the public and the defense attorneys.”

Also, the county’s personnel chief and social services director disputed cost savings that the sheriff and district attorney are predicting.

The proposal came as the board prepares to vote on its budget for the fiscal year that began July 1. State cuts and a growing county deficit have forced supervisors to consider reductions in all county agencies, including the criminal justice departments they had promised to spare.

Starting today, the board will make final decisions on such politically volatile issues as how much to contribute to county libraries, whether to eliminate a Veterans Services office and whether to cut up to 124 jobs from the county payroll.

Monday they received some good news about the budget. The latest figures show the county’s deficit at $14.7 million, down from the $17 million to $19 million predicted earlier, out of an $880-million total spending plan.

Also, the library system has more money than anticipated. That means the county could contribute less than last year’s $1.6-million subsidy and still maintain the same level of service.

And the Bradbury-Carpenter initiative, if it works, would spare supervisors the political fallout likely to come with cuts in public safety budgets.

After voters agreed to the special half-cent sales tax under Proposition 172 last fall, supervisors pledged to use all the money for law enforcement. In March, they backed up that promise with a plan to give $24 million to the sheriff, district attorney, public defender and corrections services.

But when they learned about $10 million in unexpected state cuts in June, the board began contemplating police-agency reductions.

That provoked a rebuke from Carpenter. And Bradbury threatened a lawsuit or political retaliation.

Independently elected, the sheriff and district attorney must nonetheless depend on the supervisors for funding. The Proposition 172 money is designated for public safety, but the supervisors still dole it out. The $24 million makes up only about one-sixth of the total budget for the four law enforcement agencies.

Rather than allow some of that money to filter out to other county agencies, Bradbury and Carpenter are offering to cover those services with their budgets.

That essentially would free up more county dollars for other agencies facing deep cuts. The medical examiner-coroner, for instance, could lose four of his nine employees under proposed cuts.

If absorbed by the sheriff, the office would remain intact. But, O’Halloran argued, his independence would be compromised. He recommended that the board simply give his agency Proposition 172 money and allow it to remain separate from the sheriff.

Carpenter has also proposed taking over personnel and purchasing responsibilities for his department, a plan that would move six county workers to the Sheriff’s Department. He would also pay the $239,000 contract for mental health counseling at the jail.

Altogether, Carpenter’s proposals add up to $2.1 million. Bradbury’s initiatives would save the county general fund $410,000 to $465,000 by taking over not only the court representation of children, but welfare fraud and code enforcement cases, he said.

Bradbury said that assuming the new responsibilities would be the equivalent of cutting 4% from his budget. Carpenter’s proposal would be about a 3.6% reduction.