County Braces as It Readies Thousands of Layoff Notices : Government: Heightened security planned at clinics and hospitals. Desperate supervisors continue lobbying in Sacramento and Washington. Board OKs library tax.

Los Angeles County officials, bracing for the possibility of violence, have heightened security as they get ready for perhaps their grimmest task ever--issuing nearly 5,200 layoff and demotion notices today as part of an effort to slash the public health care system to help solve a fiscal crisis.

Efforts to temper the anger and misery that are expected during the biggest downsizing of county government in its history escalated on many fronts Thursday.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was set to go on a heightened state of readiness this morning, and other law enforcement agencies throughout the county began preparing to respond to any incidents of violence.

Union leaders and county officials haggled throughout the day over precisely how many county jobs could be saved, with the union arguing that it has identified 1,600 contract workers who should be laid off first.

And desperate county supervisors continued lobbying in Sacramento and Washington in a last-minute search for financial assistance to save the health care system from further ravages and to avert at least some of the planned layoffs, which are to take effect Oct. 1, when 28 clinics and six comprehensive health centers are expected to close.

The state Assembly was to begin debating such a bailout package for the county by Thursday evening, but negotiations were under way between lawmakers and Gov. Pete Wilson over the exact dimensions of the financial aid. Wilson returned to California on Thursday after a presidential campaign trip to New Hampshire. Critics faulted Wilson for being out of the state while Los Angeles and Orange counties’ financial rescue packages await action in the last hours of this year’s legislative session. Wilson, however, blamed Los Angeles county’s glum fiscal prospects on a lack of agreement among area lawmakers and county officials.

Against that backdrop, health workers protested in South-Central Los Angeles, and the Board of Supervisors voted to raise more than $9 million in taxes in unincorporated areas and some cities--money that will be used to save services at county libraries.

Besides the palpable sense of gloom and dismay that pervaded the county Hall of Administration and offices countywide Thursday, the specter of mass layoff notices suddenly made the health crisis seem more immediate to all involved.

“It is one of the darkest days of my county career, to know that some 6,700 notices of layoffs, releases and demotions are going out to county employees,” said Mike Henry, the county’s personnel director, who has presided over the layoff planning. “There has never been anything like this in the history of the county.”

Said one county union spokesman, Steve Weingarten: “The amount of stress on people is insane. People are pretty disgusted. They are anxious for their immediate future.”

At the H. Claude Hudson Comprehensive Health Center near Downtown Los Angeles, administrators decided to get an early start in delivering the word to health workers about whether they will be laid off, demoted or transferred. All week they had been saying the notices would come late in the day. But concerns about employee morale and the problems of stressed-out county health workers hitting the rush hour all at once apparently convinced administrators to move up the schedule.

Nurses in the pediatrics unit were called together for a meeting late Thursday and told they would receive word early in the morning. The understanding was that those receiving bad news would be allowed to leave early.

Dr. Roni Vasani, assistant medical director at Hudson, said the notifications would be made through the day and that patients would continue to be seen. “It will be a very difficult day, but for patients it will be business as usual,” she said. “We will see all the patients we normally would expect to see.”

Henry said targeted employees will be given packages on unemployment benefits, a job fair and other information to soften the blow. “The potential collapse of the health care operation is such an emotional trauma . . . it’s got us really on pins and needles,” he said. “I’m just hoping the employees respect the fact that we are treating them in a humane fashion.

“There will be a lot of anxiety over the next two weeks,” Henry said. “We still don’t know where we are” regarding the potential need for even more layoffs if aid from Sacramento and Washington does not come through.

Before dawn today, the Sheriff’s Department was to go on a tactical alert that would last through next Friday. The county also was preparing to deploy a greatly increased law enforcement presence at the county’s many clinics, comprehensive health centers and hospitals.

According to a bulletin issued Thursday afternoon to all Sheriff’s Department unit commanders, issuance of the layoff notices “could easily overwhelm the [county] safety police if problems/incidents were to occur simultaneously.”

In anticipation of that, county safety police--who, like deputies, are sworn officers with guns--will be pulled out of health clinics and redeployed at the county’s larger comprehensive health centers and hospitals. In their place, the bulletin said, unarmed private security guards with batons have been hired for temporary duty at health clinics beginning today, for up to a month.

Increased patrols of medical facilities by sheriff’s units also will be in place for at least the next two weeks, the bulletin said. Deputies and their supervisors have been instructed to bring “tactical response equipment” and video cameras if called out to respond to emergencies.

The potential for violence was outlined in a special report prepared by Lt. Ricardo Cotwright, chief of the county’s safety police. It has been sent to county health services managers so they can better address issues of violence “prevention, threat assessment and response.”

“The impending downsizing of the Department of Health Services has greatly increased the potential for violence in the workplace,” Cotwright wrote, noting that 125 incidents of workplace violence in the United States between 1984 and 1993 resulted in at least 393 deaths and 214 injuries--including 34 deaths in U.S. Postal Service offices alone.

Cotwright also said employers--such as the county--are increasingly being held legally responsible for such violent incidents. “However, through strong management commitment, day-to-day involvement of managers, supervisors, employees and labor unions, the [county] can reduce the risk and liability for workplace violence,” he wrote.

Union leaders also said they have been working closely with their rank and file in anticipation of the layoff notices, and that a massive outreach effort was scheduled for today to counsel those laid off and to disseminate as much information as possible to a work force paralyzed by uncertainty.

The county’s major employee union, representing half of its 85,000 workers, also planned protests throughout the day.

“It is tragic,” said Gilbert Cedillo, general manager for the Service Employees International Union, Local 660. “It is an embarrassment for the county of Los Angeles. These men and women have dedicated themselves to providing a public service. . . . The disruption to each of the more than 5,000 individual households [of those people laid off] is immeasurable, and unwarranted.”

“That is the real tragedy,” Cedillo said, “but we will fight and utilize all our resources to ensure that they are still working on Oct. 1.”

Cedillo said he spent much of the day Thursday negotiating with county officials over the layoffs, adding that his union has identified more than 1,600 contract workers who should be let go before county employees. The union leader said county officials have not tried hard enough to lay off contract workers before staff employees.

Cedillo said the union, whose rallying cry is “Don’t Agonize, Mobilize,” is encouraging employees to respond vigorously but nonviolently.

“If there is [a potential for violence],” Cedillo said, “it has been created by the manner in which the county has handled this. We have tried to be as constructive as possible in mitigating the layoffs and keeping people informed.”

This spring, the county issued thousands of layoff notices, but the union sued and a judge forced the county to find jobs for most of the other employees.

In the current case, 5,200 Health Services employees are slated to receive bad news today, Henry said. Of those, 2,828 current employees and 1,359 temporary employees will receive layoff notices, and 1,009 will be demoted. Another 1,543 employees will be transferred, mostly from clinics targeted for closure. Notices will be given to employees by their immediate supervisors throughout the day.

Local 660 alone stands to lose 578 clerical workers, 101 clerical supervisors, 928 nurses and 135 supervising nurses, 276 medical technologists such as therapists and lab workers and 279 medical billing specialists. An additional 692 of its members will be demoted and 306 temporary workers will be released, spokesman Weingarten said.

“It is a tragedy for the . . . people directly affected tomorrow,” he said. “But it is a bigger tragedy to all the people of Los Angeles. But we still think the money is there, if Washington and Sacramento get serious. These cuts can be prevented, and we will fight to the very end, and beyond, for health care in Los Angeles. Everything that public health officials are committed to will suffer.”

Earlier Thursday, the Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 1 to create a special library assessment district that will provide more than $9 million this year to keep county libraries open. A $22 annual tax will be levied on homeowners in the county’s unincorporated areas and some small cities that voted to participate in the district.

Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., joined Supervisor Deane Dana in opposing the measure. Calling it an “illegal property tax,” Vosburgh said his group would sue the supervisors, as it did last year to block the county from imposing a similar tax.

The county ultimately dropped its plan to impose that tax last year, but County Counsel Gerald Crump told the board Thursday that he believed it would win a court challenge over the issue.

The library tax is one of only a few that the supervisors can levy without the approval of state lawmakers.

County Librarian Sandra Reuben said the new revenue will allow libraries to remain open 10 to 24 more hours a week. Without the money, Reuben said, the county would be forced to cut libraries’ service hours and purchasing budgets drastically.

Times staff writers Douglas P. Shuit in Los Angeles and Dave Lesher in Sacramento contributed to this story.