Supervisors OK More Cuts in Spending Plan

County supervisors Thursday plugged the remaining $1.7-million gap in next year’s spending plan, approving more across-the-board cuts and relying on increasingly optimistic revenue projections.

After slashing at a budget deficit that stood at nearly $18 million early last week, the board will meet again Tuesday to finalize its decision with a package of resolutions. The cuts will come from the county’s $531-million operating budget.

While board members approved more than $6.6 million in actual spending cuts to county agencies for the fiscal year beginning Tuesday, they are banking on millions of new dollars through income-raising strategies and rosy revenue projections based on a healthy economy.

Supervisor Frank Schillo said he felt confident the projections would hold. But he couldn’t help but notice that as the board’s budget deliberations dragged on, new revenues seemed to appear out of the blue . . . or in this case, red.

“If we had waited until August or September, we wouldn’t have had any deficit at all,” Schillo quipped after Thursday’s hearing. “The longer time went on, the more revenue showed up.”

An avowed fiscal conservative, Schillo said seeing the revenue projections become reality during the upcoming fiscal year will tell the real tale.

“If [department heads] . . . are certain enough to put it in the budget, they better come up with it,” he said.

If not, the supervisors will find themselves dipping into a $4.3-million pot set aside in a contingency fund to cover unexpected shortfalls.

Under a final 4% across-the-board cut approved by the board, the Public Social Services and Health Care agencies took the largest individual hits.

The Health Care Agency, which includes public and mental health departments and the Ventura County Medical Center, will have its county funding cut by $1.65 million next year. Public Social Services--including foster care, welfare, veterans’ services and child and adult protective services--saw spending slashed by $523,000.

These cuts worried Supervisor Susan Lacey, because every 18 cents the social services agency receives through the county general fund translates to $1 once state and federal matching grants are obtained.

“I’m concerned,” Lacey said. “When you’re talking about $500,000, those are 18-cent dollars. You’re losing a lot of state and federal dollars.”

Lacey predicts once department heads decide where they will cut their budgets, there will be some layoffs.

But county administrators say it is too soon to tell how many county employees might lose their jobs. In the past, county managers have averted layoffs by eliminating vacant positions and shifting employees between departments.

The across-the-board savings strategy used by board members means their office budgets will be cut by $9,000 each next year, and Chief Administrator Lin Koester’s office will be set back $53,600.

All told, general government and support services, which include the county recorder, county counsel, personnel, assessor and auditor, are scheduled to spend $543,800 less next year. Public works, planning, animal regulation and the agriculture department budgets were cut by $254,100.

The cuts would have been larger had it not been for four key strategies used to bring the deficit down.

The board agreed to spend a pot of $1.5 million in business license fees set aside amid a court battle over the ability of local government to raise fees and taxes without a public vote. The board also increased the county’s revenue projections by $876,000 to reflect an improved economy, reduced internal service fees by $734,000, and approved a four-day, no-pay employee furlough projected to save $1.4 million.

Supervisors also benefited from $1.1 million in revenues transferred from the district attorney, sheriff and correction services, agencies mostly immune to budget cuts because of a special county ordinance.

In approving the $531.5-million spending plan, supervisors were careful to avoid a historic practice that saw them relying on reserves and other savings to balance deficits, a practice that effectively carried deficits from one year to the next.

The county’s persistent deficit led the bond-rating agency Standard & Poor’s to lower the county’s credit rating this year. Another dip in the reserve pool during fiscal 1997-98, Auditor Tom Mahon had warned the board, and the county’s credit rating would have been further reduced, thereby increasing its cost to borrow money.

Department heads and budget officials are expected to analyze the board’s actions and present a clearer picture of their impacts by Tuesday.

Whether Wall Street will look favorably on the board’s decisions, and whether the board’s actions will finally bring the county’s spending in line with its income, remains unclear, Mahon said.

“By Tuesday, when you get the details, you know who’s done what to whom,” Mahon said.