Opposition to Sigoloff as County Chief Grows : Recovery: Open concern about his reputation and price tag spurs sudden invitation to Texan B.J. Rone.

As Orange County supervisors struggled under mounting pressure Thursday to pick a new top administrator--with three ready to endorse tough turnaround specialist Sanford C. Sigoloff and two undecided--department heads and employees openly worried about what life would be like under the leading candidate.

Although Sigoloff has ranked as the clear front-runner in recent weeks, enough concern about his reputation and $500-an-hour price tag has emerged that deadlocked supervisors turned suddenly to Texas corporate rescuer B.J. Rone, inviting him at the last minute to fly out for a Thursday afternoon interview.

Outright fear was spreading among those in and outside of county government that nothing would be left of county services if Sigoloff, a strong-willed executive with a reputation for ruthlessly cutting budgets and work forces, is appointed.

“The talk that we hear is not good--that he is very uncaring about employees,” said Robert MacLeod, general manager of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. “If he is as ruthless and as uncaring as he is portrayed to be in the media and he came in and conducted himself that way, then when he is gone, the Board of Supervisors are going to have a bunch of wounded animals to contend with as opposed to a cooperative labor force.”

Several county department heads declined to discuss Sigoloff publicly, because they feared reprisal if he is ultimately chosen for the job.

“A lot of people are afraid Sigoloff is going to butcher county government,” said one county official, who asked not to be identified.

Although there appeared to be a majority of votes for Sigoloff, supervisors say they want to present a united voice and support a candidate unanimously. As a result, supervisors picked up the phone Wednesday in the midst of a lengthy closed session and phoned Rone for the first time since he and his supporters contacted the county nine days earlier.

Rone, a Texas native, was from 1987 to 1992 the chief financial officer of Costa Mesa’s Archive Corp., a leading computer tape drive manufacturer whose sales climbed from $89 million to nearly $400 million during his tenure. He was once lauded in a financial magazine as one of the nation’s most promising chief financial officers, known at the time for his signature 10-gallon hats.

Most recently, Rone helped resuscitate the Dallas-based AdvaCare, a medical reimbursement firm that collects and processes bills for thousands of doctors and hospitals. He sold AdvaCare late last year to the Medaphis Corp. in Atlanta. During his time there, he won high marks from investors for his struggles to revive the failing company.

Rone landed Thursday in Orange County sans cowboy hat, declaring that he is ready to bring in a crack team of three assistants at a cheaper price than Sigoloff’s. He doesn’t need an interim job, Rone pointed out, and the fishing and golf in Texas are pretty nice this time of year, but he views Orange County’s situation as a challenge.

“The challenge to me is very interesting,” said Rone, 52. “That’s what I do for a living, is go into difficult situations and make some order. I just think there’s a real need. This thing is dragging on and dragging on. Some people I know in Orange County contacted me and suggested I throw my hat in the ring, so the supervisors would have another choice. So I did that.”

Rone said that if chosen, he would charge $275 an hour, and $150 to $175 an hour each for two to three staff people. Sigoloff’s staff would be larger and they would each charge $250 to $350 an hour.

The interim CEO--a six-month term--is expected to make some very tough budget decisions. Some county officials said they believed the position would be so unpopular it would be better to have an outsider.

County supervisors, who are scheduled to continue discussion today, have not yet prepared a final draft job description for the new administrator, but the position is likely to come with much greater power than that previously granted to County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider, who was demoted last month after supervisors complained of his lack of leadership and criticized his recovery plans for the county as insufficient.

Acting CAO Tom Uram, also director of the county Health Care Agency, has filled in for Schneider but needs to resume his other duties full time.

Despite his wage demands, Sigoloff impressed supervisors during closed session interviews, in which he presented the board with a management flow chart and millions of dollars in cuts he was already proposing.

According to sources close to the selection process, Sigoloff has tentative support from at least three supervisors. Supervisor William G. Steiner has yet to endorse Sigoloff and Supervisor Roger R. Stanton is apparently undecided.

Sigoloff, 63, has proposed a chain of command that gives him and his team authority to reorganize as they see fit, answering to the board. He has said he will work to smooth relations among the county and its creditors and pool investors, raise revenue or sell assets to generate cash and restructure county government.

Despite Sigoloff’s appeal, the board spent hours in closed session interviewing Rone. Other candidates apparently still in the running are Ed Dundon, former superintendent of the Garden Grove Unified School District, and William J. Popejoy, former chairman and CEO of American Savings and Loan, who has offered his services free of charge.

Earlier in the day, a trio of influential Orange County business leaders trooped through the fifth-floor offices in the county’s Hall of Administration, urging supervisors to make a decision without further delay, and lobbying for their favored candidate, Sigoloff.

The corporate turnaround specialist has “a demonstrated ability to be decisive and make the tough decisions,” said Doy Henley, president of the conservative Lincoln Club. “It’s not going to be a pleasant experience here. There are a lot of hard choices to be made.”

Added developer Buck Johns, another Lincoln Club member, “There are going to have to be some dramatic changes made” in the way the county is managed. “We think this guy is the guy for the job.”

Rone, however, has been courting the county since Feb. 1, when he sent Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez a letter expressing interest in the interim position and stating that he ranks “credibility and preservation of employees’ jobs as a very high priority.”

A group of local business leaders then phoned and faxed Vasquez’s office to encourage supervisors to open the process and consider Rone, calling for a “level playing field” in the selection process.

Sheriff Brad Gates questioned whether the county needs any outside help from corporate rescue artists--whether Sigoloff or Rone or anyone else.

“Do we really need a guy on a white horse?” Gates asked. “What’s he going to bring to the table?”

Gates said county officials and department heads have made tremendous strides in the past 60 days dealing with the county’s financial collapse and are planning to cut the bureaucracy as much as humanly possible.

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In the sheriff’s view, which is shared among other department heads, the interim CEO needs to be somebody who is familiar with the county’s government, politics and private sector.

“It should be somebody with a stake in the county, a person who is going to live with the design (of government) he creates . . . concerned about the quality of life here,” Gates said.

“It’s better not to make a decision than pick the wrong person for the job,” he said, stopping short of voicing opposition to Sigoloff. “I don’t think it’s wise to make a change for change sake.”

Throughout county government, there was also unanimous worry Thursday that business strong-men with no experience running a public agency will be paralyzed by the complexities of government funding and mandated services.

Social Services Agency Director Larry Leaman said he thinks a private industry expert will allay the fears of county residents who have lost faith in government as a result of the crisis. But his own agency is so unique to the public sector that his staff has spent the past three weeks preparing a training manual for Sigoloff or any other private sector CEO the county might hire, he said.

“We are assuming there will need to be a quick education process from our agency and other agencies,” Leaman said. “It’s a matter of necessity. We have been at work preparing a catalogue explaining what we do, how we do it, what the state laws and regulations are that require us to do what we do and the micro-management that we’re under . . . so that a new CEO who may not have a familiarity can get a grasp on our agency.”

The catalogue is 40 pages long and growing daily. Just Thursday, Leaman said he realized it should include a background on the myriad court decisions that limit the county’s ability to cut a host of programs, and mandate that certain work, such as MediCal applications, be processed immediately.

“We have to make sure that we keep that new CEO from shooting himself or us in the foot,” Leaman said.

Times staff writer Rebecca Trounson contributed to this report.