County Seeks State’s Permission to Cut Welfare Payments

Contending that Los Angeles County is in “significant financial distress,” top county officials told a state panel Friday that they desperately need special permission to reduce welfare benefits to the poorest of the poor because the money simply isn’t there.

The members of the California Commission on State Mandates made the trip to the county’s Hall of Administration to hear a day’s worth of sworn testimony from a wide array of county officials regarding their financial woes.

The county is seeking to cut general relief welfare benefits to about 95,000 recipients by 25%, or from $285 to $212 a month, so it can save an estimated $78 million a year. Otherwise, basic services to all residents will have to be cut.

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After hearing from dozens of county officials--and advocates for the homeless and welfare recipients who opposed the request--Chairwoman Theresa A. Parker said the commission will probably make a ruling Tuesday in Sacramento.

The commission’s staff already has recommended approving the request based on what it says is the county’s $480 million in unmet needs.

During nearly nine hours of testimony, the commission heard from more than a dozen county officials, who testified under oath that they cannot provide legally mandated services such as law enforcement, health and mental health care and welfare assistance.

Welfare workers said they are handling caseloads eight times higher than they should be.

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said his prosecutors, public defenders and other law enforcement workers are being overwhelmed as never before because of mounting caseloads and budget cutbacks.

What the district attorney did not tell the commission is that he is seeking approval to promote more than 115 members of his staff, which would raise their salaries.

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Undersheriff Jerry Harper said the county has survived fires, floods, earthquakes and riots, but the current financial crisis--combined with the state’s “three strikes” law that has put thousands more criminals into the jail system as they await trial--poses “the greatest threat of all” to his department.

Areta Crowell, director of the county Department of Mental Health, said the county is providing basic mental health services to 78,000 of the 138,000 residents determined to be severely mentally ill under the most conservative estimates. After years of budget cutbacks and dwindling state and federal aid, Crowell said, her department would need an additional $315 million a year to treat all those in need.

“In my opinion, we do not provide a basic level of mental health services,” Crowell said.

But homeless people and anti-poverty advocates told a different tale.

Many agreed that the safety net in the county is frayed and in danger of collapse. Homeless residents such as Dee Jones argued that poor existing services for the indigent make it even more important to keep welfare benefits at current levels.

Pete White, of the Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness, criticized county officials for seeking to cut welfare benefits when so many county employees are highly paid.

Citing a Times article that disclosed that 1,225 of the county’s 85,000 workers earned more than $100,000 last year in base salary, White said: “How dare the Board of Supervisors’ office and the CAO’s office come before you and beg fiscal distress?” he asked. “They’re living in the lap of luxury.”

In response, Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed said the vast majority of the high salaries go to people such as attorneys, judges and physicians.

She also said the county has tried all means possible to avoid cutting welfare benefits, but that its fiscal crisis made it necessary.

The commission has determined that at least two other California counties were in such dire financial straits as to be granted similar reductions in welfare payments.

For Los Angeles County, the attempt marks the third try at lowering welfare benefits in recent years; the two others failed.

In one attempt, a court rejected the county’s effort to include the value of medical benefits in the monthly welfare payments, and told the county it had to pay the money back. The county lost its appeal of that ruling.

And the county’s efforts to have the state Legislature allow such a benefits rollback failed when Democratic lawmakers refused to go along with it, saying the county shouldn’t balance its budget by cutting welfare benefits.