Supervisors Pare $8.6 Million, 65 Jobs From 1994-95 Budget : Government: The board’s action spares Veterans Services office and maintains libraries but cuts funding to Ventura County Medical Center.

After a month of agonizing over revenue shortfalls, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors spent a single afternoon Tuesday cutting $8.6 million and 65 jobs from their 1994-95 spending plan.

The plan spares the county’s popular Veterans Services office, saves the county libraries from closing branches and restores $1 million taken from mental health programs.

But it cuts $500,000 from the Ventura County Medical Center and alters the compromise law enforcement leaders engineered for sharing their special sales tax revenue.

The county’s budget also takes $6.1 million from future reserves to close the $14.7 million deficit that faced supervisors at the start of the day.

The frenzy of cuts disappointed the county employees union, which had urged the supervisors to cut deeper into what the union called ample reserves.

“I think Ventura County lost, not just the employees,” said Barry Hammitt, executive director of the Service Employees International Union, Local 998. “I think there should have been more money spent on libraries, more money spent on social services, more money spent on health care. Instead, we load all the money into the criminal justice system.”

But the law enforcement agencies did not receive all they had hoped for either.

Refusing to give up any of the Proposition 172 sales tax dedicated to public safety, the sheriff and district attorney had offered to absorb other county agencies and services into their budgets.

For instance, Sheriff Larry Carpenter agreed to pay the $917,000 for the medical examiner-coroner’s office, if it was moved under his command. Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury offered to absorb $295,000 that Indigent Legal Services spends a year on attorneys representing children in court.

The supervisors declined to move the medical examiner under the sheriff’s sway, but went ahead and took money from the sheriff’s budget to pay for it. Likewise, they transferred district attorney funding to pay for the children’s court services.

Supervisor Vicky Howard protested that the move would violate the spirit of Proposition 172, which voters approved last November specifically for augmenting public safety programs. In March, the supervisors pledged to spend $24 million of the sales tax revenue on the law enforcement agencies.

But other supervisors argued that the board should adopt a broader view of public safety.

“If the sheriff can pay $917,000 to have (the medical examiner) in his department, I think it’s quibbling to say he can’t do it when it’s not in his department,” Supervisor Maggie Kildee said. “It’s clearly already identified as a public safety issue.”

Supervisors have warned of cuts in criminal justice budgets since mid-June, when they learned that the state was handing them $10 million in unexpected cuts.

At the same time, they faced painful decisions about sustaining libraries and services for veterans. On Tuesday, the board provided $820,000 for county libraries, enough money to sustain the system at its current level. They also spared the $115,000 needed to keep open the Veterans Services office, but suggested that officials explore shifting duties to a nonprofit agency.

Coming on the heels of four successive years of revenue reductions, supervisors said they had little latitude for cuts in a sparse county budget. But the employees union hired a prominent accounting firm that delivered a report Tuesday disputing those assumptions.

After reviewing Ventura County’s fiscal statements, the Harvey M. Rose Accountancy Corp. concluded county analysts consistently overestimate expenses and that they finish each year with leftover funds.

What’s more, the county has $44.6 million in a workers’ compensation fund--an account most large counties keep less than $7 million in, said Roger Mialocq, vice president of the San Francisco-based accounting firm.

“It’s very fiscally conservative and it’s great if you can afford it,” Mialocq said.

Acting Auditor Controller Tom Mahon defended the county’s policies.

“All I can say is the county of Ventura has always been conservative,” he said. “I’d hate to see the county of Ventura decide it doesn’t matter and all of the sudden go the way of other counties or the state of California.”

In the end, the board agreed to dip into the $44.6-million reserve for $1 million for the county’s Mental Health Services Department, which was facing a loss of $3 million in the budget plan.

The extra funding will help the department bring in more matching federal dollars, said Director Randall Feltman.

The board chose to cut $500,000 from the county hospital, but directed other health-related agencies to share in the reductions. The bad news was offset by a measure hospital administrators welcomed: turning over an employee health clinic to hospital workers.

Currently, the personnel department administers a small clinic at the government center on Victoria Avenue in Ventura. The hospital, which serves about 1,000 county employees through a health care plan, offers clinic services at its location about a five-minute drive away.

Now hospital workers will staff the clinic at the government center. “I think it’s a win-win for the county and for Ventura County Medical Center,” said hospital Administrator Pierre Durand. “For the county employees, it’s a convenience. For us, it’s an opportunity to sustain our health plan.”

That health plan, instituted last year, is the subject of a lawsuit filed Tuesday. Community Memorial Hospital’s Board of Trustees contends the county is using the plan, among other measures, to compete with private hospitals.

In other decisions, the supervisors:

* Spared the $37,000 used each year to run the county’s 4-H programs, but suggested that private groups take over the administrative work in future years.

* Eliminated the county’s family care coordinator.

* Cut a public education program from the Animal Regulation Department.

* Authorized the Fire Department to spend $600,000 of its own revenues for new equipment and four new employees.

* Restored the cuts made to supervisors’ staffs last year, but agreed to eliminate the memberships and dues the county pays for supervisors.

* Eliminated a little-used program for electronic monitoring of furloughed convicts.