Orange County Voices : COMMENTARY ON COUNTY BUDGET : Risks Will Increase as Lack of Services Erodes Quality of Life : We can no longer afford to ignore the connection between county services and the general public’s health and safety.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors will soon vote on a county budget for the 1995-96 fiscal year. The proposed budget will further slash vital county services, already drastically cut to deal with the bankruptcy. These cuts come with a human price. The services removed or reduced today will have far-reaching, and not-so-obvious future impacts on the average citizen, as well as the most vulnerable in our county.

Consider a recent Los Angeles Times report on a Minneapolis man who was responsible for one-third of that city’s documented cases of tuberculosis in 1992. The disease was spread through contact with other patrons at a neighborhood bar. Researchers who studied the case were understated in their conclusion: “The spread of tuberculosis in a neighborhood bar can be a major public health problem.”

That a single individual can have this kind of impact on the health of the general public should be of concern to all of us who routinely eat out, go to bars or clubs, use public restrooms, use elevators and generally behave like the social beings that we are. Orange County residents should be particularly concerned.

Why? Because many of the services being cut and lost are predominantly those that can stop just the type of public health hazard demonstrated in the Minneapolis case. Simply because most of us cannot see or feel the impact of the loss of county programs today does not mean we won’t experience serious negative impacts tomorrow. These impacts will not only affect the poor and most vulnerable in our community, but, as demonstrated by the Minneapolis case, have the potential to affect any and all of us.

In years to come, we may look back on the following lost or reduced services, and discover exactly why our quality of life has taken a turn for the worse:

* Loss of services to children: The children of Orange County are paying a particularly high price as a result of budget cuts. The Voluntary Family Maintenance Program will be reduced by 50%, meaning that 3,000 children and families annually will be denied preventive services that are proven to reduce incidents of child abuse. The Sheriff’s Department has reduced the Drug Abuse Is Life Abuse and No Gangs programs to a single staff person. Sheriff’s deputies will no longer conduct drug and gang prevention programs through all schools in Orange County. Additionally, budget cuts have caused caseloads at Child Protective Services to balloon to 125% of the state target, meaning that response and follow-up on cases of child endangerment may be delayed.

* The elimination of the majority of county services for the mentally ill: Before the bankruptcy, Orange County had 40 shelter beds available for mentally ill homeless people. Only 18 remain. The Homeless Mentally Ill Outreach program, funded by the county and operated by the Mental Health Assn., is now a budgetary memory. Already, many homeless service organizations are being inundated with calls from mentally disabled homeless people who are becoming more and more disconnected from the rest of society. In the future, this will mean more street-dwelling homeless people who must rely on panhandling or other less attractive means of subsistence.

* Cuts affecting public safety: According to the Environmental Management Agency, capital projects will take a major hit. Construction on several flood control projects will be halted. If Orange County experiences rain similar to last winter, this could be disastrous. According to the sheriff, there were only four escapes from county jails all of last year. We are less than 10 months into this year, and already county jails have experienced 12 escapes due to reduced security forces.

* Other losses: The Health Care Agency has closed the Westminster Avenue clinic, leaving 3,700 people per year without adequate preventive and emergency health services (like TB testing). The Community Services Agency’s veterans’ services office, which provides much needed emergency assistance to elderly and impoverished veterans, faces elimination, or at best, severe reduction. The diversion of funds from the Orange County Transportation Authority to the recovery effort will most likely lead to decreased bus services to the county’s elderly, disabled and impoverished. If bus services are cut, what will become of the many businesses that rely on the buses to transport customers and employees to their shops and services?

Let us reconsider the story from Minneapolis. Those sitting in that bar in 1992, contentedly sipping cocktails, probably never made the connection between government-sponsored services and the spread of TB. Perhaps they still don’t know the pain and suffering that they could have avoided if only the TB carrier had had access to free TB testing and low-cost treatment. We can no longer ignore the connection between general public health and safety, and the services provided by the county. We cannot give in to the opinion that all government services are bloated, inefficient and unnecessary. If we do not advocate these services with our elected officials now, we will regret it as flood waters rise, diseases spread and more children are abused.