1,200 County Jobs Saved as Governor OKs Funds

Gov. Pete Wilson on Thursday signed a hastily drafted bill that will allow cash-strapped Los Angeles County to receive $45 million in state and federal funds this year, an infusion that will save the jobs of more than 1,200 welfare workers.

Wilson’s action came just hours after he vetoed a plan that would have allowed the Board of Supervisors to siphon $75 million in transit funds for county health-care programs in each of the next five years.

The welfare measure approved by Wilson was sponsored by state Sen. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte). By waiving certain matching requirements--which would have required the county to put up $13.7 million of its own money to receive the state and federal funds--the bill will allow the county to recoup $45 million for the Department of Public Social Services. The department administers welfare aid, food stamps, Aid to Families With Dependent Children and other public assistance money.

Although the money was built into the county budget approved Tuesday, approval hinged on the governor. Workers with pink slips who had expected to lose their jobs Monday suddenly had a reprieve.

“Today has been a great day,” said a jubilant Joyce Horns, a department secretary in Inglewood. “I am so relieved, I just hugged my boss.”

Like 1,800 other department employees, Horns had received a layoff notice July 17 telling her that she had two more weeks of work at most, depending on what happened with the budget. A Superior Court judge earlier this week temporarily blocked those layoffs, prompting the supervisors to extend the date until Monday.

The $45 million that flows from the bill signed Thursday is expected to save the jobs of 1,248 of the workers. The remaining workers also will be able to keep their jobs under other funding tapped in the spending plan adopted by the supervisors. However, as many as 6,000 other employees--the vast majority in health services--are slated to lose their jobs by Oct. 1, with more layoffs possible after that if additional revenues don’t come through.

Since they already had budgeted the welfare department money, county officials were worried that the governor would not sign the Solis bill--particularly after Wilson said earlier this week that he planned to veto the transit-fund shift. That would have totaled $375 million over five years.

“We’ve been holding our breath, waiting to see what the governor would do,” said Carol Matsui, a top Department of Public Social Services official.

Department Director Eddy S. Tanaka said the money will help maintain “some semblance of service to our clients. Obviously, we’re getting the word out right now.”

Tanaka has said the proposed cuts would have crippled the vast welfare apparatus, where workers already are overwhelmed and forced to contend with sometimes violent aid recipients demanding assistance.

When word came down Thursday that Wilson had given his approval, employees in welfare offices throughout the county were visibly relieved.

Men hugged each other, said Joyce Washington, a district coordinator in Inglewood. “And most females,” she added, “they cried.”

“It was very, very emotional,” said Washington. “I had to calm them down.”

Solis was one of several legislators from Los Angeles County who had rushed to the aid of the county with legislative proposals that would provide financial assistance or the ability for the supervisors to raise revenues themselves by increasing taxes.

In an interview, Solis said her office has been inundated in recent days with calls from anxious county supervisors, welfare administrators, union leaders and the public, all of whom worried that Wilson would veto the funds.

To get the bill passed, “we had to scurry around, and work quickly to see what we could do,” Solis said. “This is at last something good for Los Angeles. It will give hope that there is at least some movement, and some people working aggressively for L.A. County. We are not prepared to give up.”

Another would-be savior was state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), who introduced the proposed raid on the transit funds from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

That bill passed both houses of the Legislature, but was vetoed Thursday by Wilson, who said he was “concerned about the long-range impact this measure will have on transportation services in Los Angeles County.”

At an afternoon news conference, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky castigated Wilson for vetoing the transit funds, saying, “If we go over the [financial] edge in the next three months, I don’t think the governor is going to be blameless. I feel abused by this.”

Supervisor Mike Antonovich also criticized Wilson for vetoing the transit funds, but said the governor’s support of the welfare department money was important. “This is a step in the right direction,” Antonovich said, “in ensuring that the state pays its share for programs that it had mandated” that the county provides.

Also Thursday, after two days of reconstructing exactly what the supervisors did Tuesday in passing their budget, county officials upgraded the new spending plan from $11.5 billion to $12 billion.

The original proposed budget submitted by Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed was $11.1 billion, but the supervisors devised a way to use another $300 million in revenue. By spending that additional $300 million, the county became eligible for hundreds of millions more in state and federal matching money, all of which added up to $12 billion.

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