O.C. IN BANKRUPTCY : Little Fish Hooked in Bond Pool : Crisis: Agencies with programs such as killing bugs and giving presents to needy children are caught in the financial fiasco.

Orange County is learning about the long reach of county government as its financial fiasco unfolds.

Along with schools and fire departments, little-known agencies that clean cemeteries, catch rats and distribute Christmas presents to needy children are caught up in the county’s financial woes.

Residents may be shocked to find that the county’s Fish and Game Propagation program has $107,722 invested in the county fund. Jail commissaries are owed $843,955.36. And the Irvine Child Care Project is unable to get its $313,621 right now.

Air quality improvement, victim assistance, racial sensitivity training for police officers--programs that often are taken for granted--are now threatened with extermination.

Oh, yes. Exterminators are endangered too. The county’s mosquito-abatement program is listed as a half-million-dollar partner in the swooning investment portfolio.

Fortunately, Operation Santa Claus got out just in the nick of time.

The program run by Orange County’s Social Services Agency has given Christmas gifts to poor children for 30 years.

But because of its county connection, some of the program’s operating cash is sunk under a sea of red ink this year.

Not all of its cash is paralyzed, however, thanks to a bit of creative bookkeeping.

“Every summer, when we do our planning to figure out how much our expenses are going to be and what we’re going to do, we transfer enough out of that fund to the Orangewood” Children’s Home, said Bob Griffith, chief deputy director of the Social Services Agency, which runs Operation Santa Claus.

Griffith said it is simpler to write checks on the Orangewood account than to go through the county for every dollar.

As a result, roughly $30,000 that Operation Santa Claus needs for hundreds of bicycles and gift-wrapped toys is safe; only $10,000 remains in the county pool.

Alas, few county agencies and little-known programs have experienced such a fiscal Christmas miracle, which must please the rats.

“I was never asked if I wanted to be in that fund,” grumped Gil Challet, head of the Vector Control District, which eradicates Orange County mosquitoes, gnats, rats and other vermin.

Challet was surprised that his district had nearly $2 million in the county treasury, a figure that begins to approach his yearlong operating budget, he said with alarm. The county also lists more than $500,000 that the Emergency Mosquito Abatement program has in the pool.

But Challet was especially irked because he had no say in the matter. His agency’s funding is automatically handled by the treasurer, as is every county agency’s. Which is why Griffith was having a stare-down Wednesday with two architects who wanted to know how Vector Control intended to pay for ongoing construction of a new building.

At the Human Relations Commission, the county’s budget crisis is just beginning to hit home. The people who document hate crimes and teach racial sensitivity to police departments are in jeopardy because they are affiliated with the county’s Community Services Agency.

“All managers lost our cost-of-living increases,” said Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the commission. “So I lost that this week. We had a freeze on all purchasing, freeze on all hiring, freeze on all extensions of hiring, a freeze on all non-essential everything. Our orders are not to spend anything you don’t have to.”

Which so far means: “No Xeroxing.”

But Kennedy and others must wonder if limiting use of the copy machine is just the first step down a slippery road, especially for agencies that aren’t high-profile.

Over at Operation Santa Claus, the volunteers look at Kennedy’s and other county agencies and think: There but for the grace of St. Nick. . . .

“It’s probably a surprise to a lot of people how many community organizations are tied to the county and rely on the county,” Griffith said. “I’m not surprised, because I’ve been involved with it a long time. I know.”

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Small Agencies, Big Concerns

Several smaller public programs--agencies that do everything from giving Christmas gifts to the poor to killing mosquitoes--have money tied up in Orange County’s bankrupt investment pool. The future of some of the programs is in jeopardy. Here is a sampling of the smaller investors: Fund: Amount in pool Victim/Witness Assistance: $723,822 Emergency Mosquito Abatement: $584,313 Irvine Child-Care Project: $313,621 Alternate Dispute Resolution: $277,695 Air Quality Improvement: $243,762 Public Guardian: $232,384 Coast Community College Child Development: $190,587 Fish and Game Propagation: $107,722 Human Relations Commission: $26,071 Operation Santa Claus: $9,996 Santa Ana Gardens: $8,109 Homeless Issues Trust: $7,903 Job Training Partnership Act: $3,444 Senior Santas: $837 Source: Orange County treasurer’s office