Anger Greets the Bad News : County Workers Deride References by Officials to Government ‘Family’

From the start, the hemorrhaging had seemed almost inevitable--the massive cutbacks, the wholesale layoffs, the ruined holidays. Yet when the word finally came down Thursday, it met nonetheless with anger and disillusionment from Orange County workers who bitterly derided the notion they were still part of a government “family.”

“We are innocent victims just sitting over here doing our jobs, and now we’re done,” said Donna Baird, who supervises clerks in the tax collector’s office and implored her staff of a dozen workers Thursday not to panic over the day’s news. “I don’t want to have to tell anybody they don’t have a job. I hope I don’t have to go. After 33 years (working for the county), I’m not ready to retire.”

None of the county’s 16,000 workers could be certain Thursday whether they would be laid off, but a somber tone was set by the Board of Supervisors’ afternoon decision that hundreds of jobs will be eliminated in the next six months in an effort to slash $40 million from the county budget. The moves come three weeks after the county was forced to declare bankruptcy in the midst of a financial crisis that is taking $10 million a month out of county coffers.

Top officials--including some county supervisors who have said they will consider a 5% pay reduction and loss of other perks--spoke repeatedly Thursday of “the county family” as they discussed the need for financial sacrifice.

But Robert D. Wilberg, a union activist who works as a county parks groundskeeper, was unconvinced. “This county family crap is totally unreal,” he said. “We’re not a family. We’re the workers.”

Employees facing layoffs are among the first to feel the sting of the cutbacks. But the long-term impact could be wide-ranging, affecting everything from county parks and beaches to waste disposal and law-enforcement services.

In the courts, for instance, Presiding Orange County Superior Court Judge James L. Smith said administrators will scrutinize every element of operations and will make cuts that could hit hardest in the county’s ability to provide defense attorneys for the poor. Public defenders, already strained, will probably have to take on even more work.

“By golly, if someone can come in here and tell me how the public defender’s office is going to do $3.7-million more worth of work with the same resources, it will be the modern-day equivalent of the fishes-and-loaves miracle,” Smith said. County officials defended the cutbacks as a crucial step in combatting the worst fiscal disaster in Orange County history, but few employees were mollified.

“A dark day in the county has just been made darker by the Board of Supervisors,” said John H. Sawyer, general manager for a labor union that represents more than 11,000 county workers. “I’m shocked and disappointed that the county would treat its employees so cavalierly. This is the most destructive action the board could take.”

Word spread quickly through the day about the impending layoffs. Some county employees left their offices to hear county officials announce their plans, then hustled back to work to give co-workers the bad news. It was worse than many expected.

“There’s worry, there’s fear, there’s frustration,” said Robert D. Wilberg, a union activist who works as a county parks groundskeeper.

Some workers blamed union representatives for allowing the county to bypass normal contract protections and ignore the seniority system when it comes time for layoffs. “We have no rights as far as the union,” Baird said.

But the deepest resentment was targeted at the Board of Supervisors and at former Treasurer Robert L. Citron, widely blamed for the risky investment decisions that led to a $2.02-billion loss in the county’s investment pool.

“Why is it that no one is interested in the justice of this?” asked a longtime recorder’s office employee, who declined to give his name for fear of jeopardizing his job.

“There are only five to six people who had authority over Citron, and they seem to be the only people emerging intact,” he said. “I accept responsibility for my actions and I’m wondering why I have to accept responsibility for theirs.”

Outside the Hall of Administration, four employees from the treasurer’s office sat waiting to hear how severe the cuts would be.

One woman in the group, who asked that her name not be used, scanned a document outlining the salary cuts and said sarcastically: “What a merry Christmas.”

Said Ken Carlson, a county mechanic for 15 years: “They (the supervisors) should all be fired. . . . This whole thing is ridiculous. Now I’ve got to go back to my shop and tell the guys the bad news.”

Carlson said the prospect of being laid off could change his plans to be married in July. And he worried that he might not be able to pay the tab for his three children’s Christmas presents.

“I don’t know how I’m going to pay my credit cards if they cut off my salary,” said Carlson, who earns $44,000 a year.

“I think what they should do is cut top management,” said Johnny Saavedra, who works in the employee benefits department. “It’s always the little people that are hurt in these things. It’s unfortunate that one man created so much chaos and pain in this county. He (Citron) was not thinking of his fellow residents, just about moving money around.”

Times staff writers Rene Lynch, Lee Romney and Debora Vrana contributed to this story.