Supervisors to Begin Task of Cutting $19 Million : Budget: Closing some libraries and reducing legal services at Simi courthouse are among possibilities as the county targets a $38-million deficit.

Earlier this year Ventura County Supervisor Maggie Kildee summed up her anxiety over what government programs and services could suffer as the county struggled to reduce a mounting deficit.

“It’s like asking, ‘Do you want to cut off your right hand or your left hand?’ ” Kildee said glumly. “Which one don’t you need?”

The answer will come this week as the supervisors begin lopping $19 million from annual expenditures to help eliminate the county’s $38-million deficit. They plan to make an equal size cut next year.

Among some of the cost-cutting measures to come up Tuesday: Closing seven of the county’s 16 branch libraries, eliminating 29 hospital and residential beds for the mentally ill, and reducing legal services by half at the East County Courthouse in Simi Valley.

Kildee said her biggest worry is the combined $3.6-million cut proposed for the county health-care system. Mental Health Services would take the single largest cut of any county department, about $2 million.

“That one’s going to be tough,” Kildee said.

Randall Feltman, director of Mental Health Services, warned during a recent budget study session that the proposed cuts would force more mentally ill people out onto the streets. He said any money the county saves by cutting mental health programs would be spent on medical care and law enforcement intervention that will be needed to handle the expected increase in public disturbances.

But Supervisor Frank Schillo said the county cannot afford to foot the entire mental health bill without damaging other services.

“If we were to come up with [the money] everybody wanted, we’d be back in the same place we started at--with a big deficit,” Schillo said. “Mr. Feltman has the department with the biggest deficit, he has to take responsibility for that.”

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Schillo, however, said he would not support eliminating the eight beds that the county subsidizes at Camarillo State Hospital for the severely mentally ill. He said he wants Feltman to find other areas to cut first.

“If he doesn’t, I will,” Schillo said. “He has a choice of finding areas [for cuts] that would have the least impact, and instead he has chosen areas that would have the most impact.”

In other areas, Schillo and Kildee said there may be some relief ahead for the county library system. Although officials have said the county would only be able to muster about half of the $1.6 million requested by the Library Services Agency, they now say the county may be able to juggle enough funds to keep the entire system afloat for at least the next nine months.

Schillo said this would give county officials enough time to put together an alternative funding plan for libraries. Schillo is exploring breaking up the county system and replacing it with smaller library districts that could be operated by cities.

“We need to come up with a more efficient system, and that will give more local control,” he said.

Kildee said she supports libraries, but questions the county’s responsibility for funding them. The library system is not a county agency, but rather a special district that receives its money from property taxes administered by the state.

“We’re mandated to provide health services, but not library services,” Kildee said. “So what do you do, fund health services or library services? Which one do you cut?”

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Meanwhile, county court officials said a proposed $500,000 budget cut to their department would force them to scale back operations at the East County Courthouse in Simi Valley. Two commissioners hear traffic, divorce and some minor criminal cases at the small courthouse as a convenience to East County residents.

Schillo, whose district includes Thousand Oaks, said he would prefer that court services be trimmed across the board rather than limit the cuts to the Simi Valley courthouse.

County officials said they expect to eliminate about 140 county positions, but that fewer than 100 of those would be layoffs. Some layoffs are expected to come from libraries as well as social and health services.

Although acknowledging they are facing a large deficit, some supervisors said they still believe that county government is bloated and in many areas is not operating as efficiently as it could.

“I know we have some problems,” Supervisor John Flynn said. “But I think there’s enough money. I just think that the system is so convoluted.”

Schillo, a former Thousand Oaks councilman who was elected to his county post last November, agreed that the county’s large bureaucracy makes it difficult to maneuver through the budget process. During two weeks of budget study sessions, he often joked that he had to ask three questions to get one answer from department heads.

“It’s really a mess up here,” Schillo said. “I’m a financial consultant [by profession], but you have to be a linguist to figure out what they’re saying. They just speak a different language.”

The Board of Supervisors will hear final presentations from department managers on Monday. They will take public testimony during the day, and hold a special public hearing on budget matters beginning at 6 p.m. at the County Government Center.