D.A., Sheriff Consider Initiative on Funding : Finance: Officials, reacting to supervisors’ budget cuts, want all Proposition 172 money spent on public safety expansion.

Frustrated by budget cuts forced on them this week, Ventura County law enforcement officials are considering a ballot initiative that would bind the county to use all of its Proposition 172 revenue to improve public safety.

“At this point, I along with several others in public safety are exploring the possibility of a local initiative,” Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said Thursday. “It would eliminate the loopholes through which the supervisors managed to cut our budgets.” Sheriff Larry Carpenter said he too would join an initiative effort. “I will support whatever it takes to tie their hands,” he said. “I’m angry and bitter on behalf of the citizens of Ventura County who voted for Proposition 172.”

Their remarks represent the latest round in a continuing power struggle over the special sales tax revenue that voters approved in November.

Law enforcement officials maintain that every penny of the estimated $28 million Ventura County will receive from the tax in the coming year should go toward expanding, not just maintaining, services.

In the fall, before voters approved the proposition, the Board of Supervisors agreed to spend all Proposition 172 money on expanding public safety.

They took the first step toward allocating the money in March, pledging $24 million toward new jobs and programs for law enforcement agencies.

But on Tuesday, the supervisors took $1.2 million of that money and shifted it to other programs, angering the sheriff and district attorney.

What’s more, the supervisors have never committed $4 million of the coming year’s $28 million in Proposition 172 revenues to augmenting any program. That money will go, instead, to maintain current services in the Sheriff’s Department, county officials acknowledge.

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Nothing in the original Proposition 172 initiative, however, prevents the county from doing that. In fact, many counties have simply used the sales tax to replace, rather than augment, county spending, state officials say.

In that context, the sheriff and district attorney do not have that much to complain about, supervisors say.

“I don’t see anything wrong with what the sheriff’s doing, but the board came pretty close to the (March) agreement,” said Supervisor John K. Flynn, an advocate for the law enforcement agencies.

“They are probably concerned about a foot in the door, and next year there’s probably a bigger door opening.”

Bradbury, blasting the board for dishonesty and “Machiavellian tactics,” had previously threatened a lawsuit and recall elections against supervisors tampering with public safety’s money. On Thursday, he said the ballot initiative looked like the most viable option to protect the revenues.

Too late for this year’s election, Bradbury said they would aim to put the measure on the next countywide ballot. But that would not come until November, 1995, according to the registrar of voters office.

Bradbury said the initiative would assert the need to expand services and would strictly define public safety, including the county’s Fire Department.

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In March, the supervisors overlooked the firefighters after four law enforcement and court agencies came forward with the $24-million proposal.

“It’s going to be a very hot issue in the near future,” said Ken Maffei, who heads the Ventura County Professional Firefighters Assn. “I think you’re going to see an initiative. And I think you’re going to see all public safety departments participating.”

Maffei said his organization did polling and legal research on a similar measure earlier this year. “Our poll indicated that it would win by a landslide, like 90% of the voters,” he said.

The firefighters dropped their initiative effort in the spring, believing that county supervisors would give them $2 million to $3 million of the sales tax revenue, Maffei said.

But the Fire Department did not formally request the additional funding in budget hearings, and the supervisors did not provide any.

Board members have been considering cuts in public safety since June, when they learned that the state would withhold $10 million in revenue.

Bradbury and Carpenter, hoping to stave off cuts, offered to absorb $2.5 million worth of county services. That included assuming hiring and purchasing responsibilities within their departments, as well as taking over entire programs like the medical examiner’s office.

The supervisors allowed them to assume the services, initiatives that could cost the sheriff about $500,000 and the prosecutor about $26,000.

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But they balked at broader consolidation plans that would have moved the medical examiner’s office and legal services for children under the public safety umbrella.

Instead, the board voted to take $917,000 from the sheriff to pay for the medical examiner’s staff and about $300,000 from the prosecutor to pay for children’s legal services.

“They completely distorted what we had said,” Bradbury said. “That kind of dishonesty in government is what the public is so outraged about.”

But supervisors said they received few calls about the issue after Tuesday’s final budget vote. Even Flynn, who argued staunchly for the sheriff and district attorney, said the outcome was not that disturbing.

“I think that was not exactly what public safety wanted, but I think it comes close,” he said.