Supervisors Deny Charges of Fiscal Crisis in Ventura County

The depiction of Ventura County government as facing near financial chaos is overblown, county supervisors said Tuesday, and they already are taking steps to deal with a ballooning deficit and vacuum in leadership.

Supervisor John K. Flynn said a sweeping denunciation of county fiscal practices by former Chief Administrative Officer David L. Baker does not put the expected $5-million deficit this year into perspective. The county has faced far larger shortfalls in its nearly $1-billion budget and has always found a way to deal with them, said Flynn, a 23-year board veteran.

“The county is not going broke,” he said. “People will continue to get paid. We will continue to operate. This is not an Orange County-like bankruptcy situation. We have problems, but we have ways to overcome them.”

Baker, 50, quit over the weekend after four days on the $157,000-a-year job.

He had arrived the previous Monday, flush from a successful five-year stint as San Joaquin County’s top administrator. But he soon learned that the financial problems facing the county were more dire than had been revealed publicly. Not only did the county need to pay a $15.3-million Medicare fraud settlement, but it was also facing the loss of millions more in revenue.

Immediate action to reduce costs was needed if the county was to have the cash needed to pay its 7,100 employees, auditor Tom Mahon warned. Baker appeared flabbergasted when he heard that, Mahon said.

In meetings with fewer than a dozen county leaders, Baker learned about turf wars and cutthroat politics as department heads maneuvered to protect budgets, he said. He also learned that the administrative office is often kept out of the loop, sometimes by design, and had been ineffectual in managing pressing problems.

On Saturday, he abruptly resigned, leaving a scathing six-page assessment of the county’s problems.

“I really wanted this to work,” Baker said. “I considered going to the board with my concerns. But that would have worked far better before accepting the job. On the other hand, how do you get the inside information before you are there?”

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to offer a short-term contract within the next month to a strong executive to come in and make the deep cuts necessary to balance the county’s budget.

Supervisors will ask the California State Assn. of Counties to supply them with a list of retired government executives who are willing to work with the board for the next six to 12 months and will choose from those candidates. Supervisors will interview finalists and hope to have someone on the job within a month, Supervisor Judy Mikels said.

Bert Bigler, the county’s deputy administrative officer, was chosen to serve as interim administrator until a retired executive is found.

“We need someone right now,” Mikels said after a 90-minute closed board session. “We agreed and believe that there are probably several retired executives out there. We need someone, as we start this budget process, who will give us the ability to move on.”

Supervisors appeared intent on assuring the county’s 7,100 employees and the public that major financial and structural problems identified by Baker are well known to them and are already being addressed. In his letter, Baker asserted that reduced revenues were creating a cash flow problem that raised doubts about the county’s ability to meet its payroll.

Baker also concluded that Mahon has done a poor job informing the board of the true fiscal situation.

Mikels, however, said the Board of Supervisors approved strategies in October to begin dealing with this year’s deficit. And supervisors had intended to tackle plans for making cuts with Baker by their side, Mikels said.

“I think it was highly overreactive for someone who has been here four days,” she said. “Is there some validity to what he says? Yes. But I hired him to help fix those problems.”

Supervisor Frank Schillo praised Baker for bringing the issues to the forefront. Schillo suggested that Baker decided to back out when it became clear that one of his first actions would be to draw up a list of programs and jobs to be cut.

“He likely saw that cutting all this stuff and being the bad guy is not his style,” Schillo said.

The supervisors will be looking for someone with a background in county finance who is not afraid to confront department heads who might try to protect their budgets, Flynn said. “We need someone who can stand up to those who like to make end runs around the chief administrator and go directly to the board,” he said.

Times staff writer Fred Alvarez contributed to this story.