ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Department Heads Can Only Worry and Wait : Budget: Agencies already hard-pressed for money say future depends on how crisis is resolved.

Hiring, travel expenses and other nonessential spending were the first to go. But what may be next remained unclear Friday as officials in already-strapped Orange County departments anxiously awaited word about possible cutbacks to deal with the financial crisis.

Like other department heads, county Librarian John M. Adams wondered this week what would happen to the library system’s budget, its 27 branches already on reduced hours and shored up by a number of one-time fixes and emergency allocations.

Officials said they were hoping to get a clearer picture of the county’s financial shape next week before deciding what cuts would be needed.

“We need to find out how much we’ve got and then we’ll do whatever is necessary,” Adams said.

“Everything is going to depend on what type of program is developed to get us out of this mess,” said Orange County Public Defender Ronald Y. Butler, who received 10 new positions earlier this year to defend clients facing lengthy sentences under California’s new “three strikes” law. Butler had been hoping to add more staff in the next few months.

“I’m sure it’s going to affect all of us. How much? It’s really impossible to tell at this point.”

Orange County’s decision this week to seek protection from its creditors comes in a fiscal year that had been hailed as the rosiest in recent memory.

For the first time in three years, the Board of Supervisors approved a $3.7-billion budget this fall that did not include layoffs or leaving vacant positions unfilled. The budget maintained spending at current levels for most programs and called for the creation of more than 900 county jobs, nearly half of the 2,000 positions cut in past budget crunches.

In recent months county departments received the go-ahead to buy equipment, including a $1.25-million short-term service contract for a firefighting helicopter, a request made in the wake of the devastating Laguna Beach firestorm last year. And the county’s innovative, $2-million anti-gang program known as Target was among those new programs paid for by the risky--and previously high-profit--investments made by former county Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron.

Even before the bankruptcy filing, County Clerk Gary L. Granville said his department was considering about $500,000 in cutbacks, mainly through executive salaries, as part of the merger of the clerk and recorder’s offices.

Granville said he was unsure how the crisis might affect those plans, and noted that funds used for ongoing automation improvements are tied up in the investment pool.

County Fire Chief Larry J. Holms was reviewing his budget too. “We are going on the assumption that we will be able to maintain emergency response capabilities and serve the public in a way they would expect to be served,” he said.

At the Health Care Agency, which added extra positions this year in part to prevent further outbreaks of tuberculosis in the county, Director Tom Uram said he is hoping for more information next week.

“We’re just running our clinics as we have last week and the week before,” he said. “We made no changes yet.”