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.

At the department’s Canoga Park office, where 95 of 344 employees had received pink slips, the news was greeted with relief.

“I’m totally elated and relieved,” said Melvin Kuznets, director of the Canoga Park and Sylmar welfare offices. “There were husband and wife dual employees, people who had been laid off at other jobs. The public needs to know that we are a super-productive department, and that our employees care about them.”

Eligibility worker Jose Almendarez, 37, likened the state aid to a miracle.

“It’s almost like an act of God to get a pink slip, and then have it get pulled back,” Almendarez said.

Almendarez should know: Two years ago, he got laid off from his job as an aircraft mechanic at McDonnell-Douglas in Long Beach.

“To face another layoff was devastating,” he said. “It’s taken me time to rebuild, and now I’m back to earning a halfway decent salary. To lose that would be terrible.”

The office on Canoga Avenue handles a caseload of about 38,000 welfare recipients.

Employees said that expecting the impending layoffs made working in the office during the past two weeks difficult. Some surreptitiously scanned newspaper help-wanted ads. Others showed stone faces, believing that any display of emotion would be bad form. Some feared they would wind up on the other side of the counter, as welfare applicants.

“There were a lot of going-away lunches that were like burials,” said Almendarez.

For eligibility worker Lorena Saucedo, 23, a pink slip put her Sept. 23 wedding plans on hold.

“Hopefully, I can keep the wedding date but I’ve already had to cancel a few things, so I don’t know,” the relieved Saucedo said Tuesday.

On his way home to tell his wife and 14-year-old son the good news, Almendarez said: “It’s incredible to think that I’ll be happy to go back to work next week.”

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.

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.”

The money is specifically earmarked for the massive welfare department, which means it cannot be diverted for health care or other funding emergencies, Tanaka said.

“This is no drop in the bucket for Los Angeles,” Solis said in a statement. “This is 1,248 jobs being saved that might have otherwise been eliminated. A lot of families will breathe easier tonight with this news.”

A 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 “a step in the right direction, in ensuring that the state pays its share for programs that it had mandated.”

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.