Supervisors Look to Own Budget for Expense Cuts : County: With reductions in health care and social services possible, leaders may trim costs in their offices too. Layoffs are considered.

Cut health care services by $2.9 million. Cut the county hospital’s budget by $1.6 million. Cut social services by $1.2 million. And, if necessary, find a way to cut dozens of county positions.

These are some of the recommendations recently put forth by Supervisors Frank Schillo and John Flynn to reduce expenditures by $19 million during the 1995-1996 fiscal year.

With final budget hearings set to begin July 25, the question is whether supervisors will be willing to cut their own $2.1-million annual budget.

“Yes, I’m willing,” said Schillo, who has proposed that the board reduce its operating costs by $239,000.

Starting today, supervisors are scheduled to hold the first of a series of budget study sessions, and Schillo said he has asked that the supervisors’ budget be the first item of discussion.

“This way we can be upfront about what we’re doing,” he said. “I think it’s our responsibility to show some leadership.”

Board Chairwoman Maggie Kildee agreed that the supervisors must set the example on budget issues.

“That’s the challenge that the board is going to have to face,” she said. “I think we have to take cuts. It would be very difficult to exempt ourselves.”

But some supervisors are reluctant to consider laying off staff members or otherwise scale back expenditures.

“We’re a small operation,” Flynn said. “It’s pretty hard to absorb anything. I don’t know. It would be very difficult to do.”

The supervisors’ budget includes salaries, benefits, travel and other expenses for the five elected officials and their staffs. Each supervisor has a full-time administrative staff of four, including one secretary.

Although she didn’t rule it out, Supervisor Susan Lacey said laying off an administrative assistant would be tough and that she would prefer not to. She said such cuts could hurt board members’ effectiveness.

“Having our staff gives us a certain amount of independence in the bureaucracy,” Lacey said. “I don’t mean that in a nasty way. That’s just reality.”

Supervisor Judy Mikels, who like Schillo campaigned for her supervisor job last fall on a promise to cut the size of county government, said she too wants to avoid laying off staff members but would do so if necessary.

“If push comes to shove, I will,” she said. “It’s tough. It’s not something I would want to do but business is business.”

Although many of the supervisors’ perks and benefits have already been scaled back, one area that is very likely to come under scrutiny is the car allowance and mileage reimbursements that they and their staff members receive.

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Some critics have said that the supervisors and their aides should take one of the benefits, but not both.

“I’m not sure we need both,” Mikels said. “But then we have to weigh how much of a benefit this is to the county and how fair it is.”

Mikels pointed out how both she and Schillo have offices at the east end of the county and as a result probably do more driving than their colleagues.

But if the board indicates that it wants to eliminate one of the two auto benefits, “I have no problem with that,” she said.

Specifically, each supervisor receives $375 a month in car allowance, except for Kildee. The county leases a 1995 Buick Regal for her at a cost of $625 a month, including insurance. The lease option is available to all board members in exchange for the car allowance.

In addition, the supervisors’ administrative assistants each receive $350 a month in car allowance, while their secretaries get $150.

Combined, the supervisors and their staffs receive more than $90,000 a year in car allowance on top of the 27 cents the county pays for every mile they drive. The same benefits are available to county department managers and administrators.

Other supervisorial expenses, like travel, are also expected to be evaluated during this week’s budget study sessions. During the past fiscal year, the supervisors together spent more than $12,000 on travel.

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But supervisors said that many of the trips are necessary and beneficial to the county. For example, Flynn traveled several times to Washington this year to lobby congressional leaders to keep Point Mugu Navy base open. And Kildee and Schillo recently traveled to New York to talk to creditors about the county’s bond rating.

Mikels said one option she would consider is dividing up the supervisors’ budget into five individual budgets, while putting travel and other expenses into a separate account.

She said she believed that would help the officials better manage their budgets.

“We need to divide it up so that we can see how much it costs to run each office,” she said. “I think we absolutely need to be as efficient and cost-effective as we can be.”

In addition to their own budget, the supervisors will examine the budgets of the chief administrator, tax collector, assessor, auditor and county clerk.