Orange County May Eliminate 2,000 Jobs : Bankruptcy: Secret memo sends shock waves of dread among workers.

As many as 2,000 county employees could face layoffs when sweeping budget cuts are announced next week, according to a confidential memo to county supervisors written by Orange County Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy.

The anticipated layoffs, which represent the biggest reduction of county personnel since the county declared bankruptcy Dec. 6, sent shock waves of dread among county workers, department heads and labor leaders.

“The morale (among employees) would probably be better if they were told that Adolf Hitler was taking over the county tomorrow,” said Bill Fogarty, executive secretary treasurer of the Orange County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO. “I think they’d feel there was more hope. It’s a disaster.”

“Popejoy himself has said there’s not a lot of fat in the county,” said Tobye Lovelace, a spokeswoman for the 11,000-member Orange County Employees Assn. “When you talk about thousands of people being laid off, you’re cutting the bone. You’re cutting vital services that are going to be felt by the public.”

In the Feb. 24 memo to the board, Popejoy wrote that preliminary estimates received from department heads--who have been asked to slash 28% of their budgets--indicate that the human toll from future budget cuts will be severe.

“The personnel reduction component alone may well involve termination of between 1,500 and 2,000 employees,” Popejoy noted in the memo, which was obtained by The Times. Those cuts would go significantly beyond the 200 layoffs ordered so far in the wake of the county’s financial disaster.

When asked about the memo Thursday, Popejoy said the figures were still evolving. “That damn memo was personal and confidential,” he said. “The numbers could go deeper or be less.”

Popejoy added that the intent of the memo was “to impress” supervisors about the severity of the financial debacle and spur them to make significant cuts in their own office budgets.

Supervisor William G. Steiner said that if board members did not get the message earlier, they did Wednesday when Popejoy laid off 25 employees in his own office.

“What he did yesterday went like an earthquake through county government,” Steiner said.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said Popejoy told him Thursday that the layoff figures are “inconclusive.”

County department heads, nonetheless, are preparing for drastic cuts.

“We’re now realizing how much more severe the numbers are,” said Health Care Agency Director Thomas E. Uram, one of three county officials who earlier this year struggled to come up with $30 million in budget cuts for the fiscal year that ends June 30.

“This is not a fun exercise. It’s not something we signed up to do when we took these (management) positions.”

During that early round of budget-cutting, Uram said, county officials “were trying to reduce as much as we could and still protect the public health, safety, welfare and economic necessity.” But Uram said he was uncertain whether the county could still protect those vital interests if more than 1,500 employees are terminated.

“That remains to be seen,” said Uram, who said he was unaware of Popejoy’s memo until questioned by a reporter. “(Massive cutting) obviously limits your ability. You have to choose to make those reductions in the least offensive way, the way that has the least impact on people in the county.”

Sweeping cuts and massive layoffs also would be devastating to the Orange County public defender’s office, which was forced to slash its budget 22%, or $7.4 million, during the last round of budget cuts in December.

“It would not only be severe, it would be fatal,” said Superior Court Presiding Judge James L. Smith. “It would be impossible for that office to provide indigent defense and this county has no option but to do it. It would be the miracle of the fish and loaves for them to cut any more money.”

Earlier this week, Popejoy warned the board that tremendous “pain” would be imposed on county workers as the county struggles to prepare a fiscal 1995-96 budget. Popejoy said next year’s discretionary general fund will be $188 million--or 41%--less than this year’s.

Times staff writer Mark Platte contributed to this report.