Departments Scramble to Avoid Falling Prey to Looming Budget Ax

Ventura County Chief Probation Officer Cal Remington scrambled Thursday to find new ways to reduce costs on the proposed juvenile detention center, one of the targets on the early list of possible cuts in the county’s ongoing financial crisis.

“We will never have another opportunity like this,” Remington said. “If we turn this back, the state is never going to give us money again.”

County Parks Department Director John Johnston voiced similar frustrations that his agency was also targeted.

“Can cuts be made?” Johnston asked. “Of course. But can they be made without affecting services? No. We’re always the first ones to be mentioned, but we’ve been mentioned so many times that there isn’t much left to be wrung out of us.”

County leaders also suggested cutting back in the Human Services Agency, and Director Barbara Fitzgerald expressed similar anxieties.

“When the board tells us how much to cut, we will present them with options,” she said. “But I see our agency as acting as a safety net. We prevent people from getting deeper into the system, and we save the county millions of dollars.”

The juvenile detention center, the Parks Department and the Human Services Agency were identified in comments Wednesday by Supervisor Frank Schillo and Auditor Tom Mahon, as they and other county leaders wrestled with ways to close the county’s $5-million budget deficit.

Of those three, the juvenile detention center has had especially strong support from a variety of county leaders. The county has already received a $40.5-million state grant, and county officials said they would go out of their way to save it.

Supervisors John Flynn and Judy Mikels said Thursday they are confident the county will raise the money to pay back $9 million already borrowed for the center. They also said the county would be able to find a way to pay for staffing, which could cost as much as $5 million. The county could have to hire up to 98 additional probation officers by 2010.

Sheriff Bob Brooks and Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Totten supported the idea of using a portion of funds now guaranteed to their departments under a local ordinance to help pay for staffing and operations of the new juvenile facility.

“When we take a look at general safety needs, a new Juvenile Hall is everybody’s priority,” Brooks said. “We have needed an expanded Juvenile Hall facility for well over 25 years. The conditions the juveniles are currently housed in are deplorable and unsafe, and there really is no room for growth.”

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Two years after the 1993 statewide passage of a half-cent sales tax initiative, Ventura County became the only county in California to guarantee that Proposition 172 dollars go exclusively to the sheriff, district attorney, public defender and corrections services.

In addition to the monetary guarantee--the tax provided $40 million this fiscal year for the four departments--the county’s ordinance requires officials to dip into the general fund to pay for inflationary costs for employee salary and benefit increases.

Brooks and Totten agreed that these inflationary funds could be used instead for the juvenile center.

“It’s something we’d certainly look at,” Totten said. “The juvenile justice center is desperately needed, and the district attorney’s office is committed to making it happen.”

Flynn and Mikels support moving forward with the youth jail. The county recently hired a project management firm to oversee design and construction, but has not yet purchased land for the center. Officials are doing environmental impact reports on two potential sites.

Mikels said she didn’t have any ideas where to raise the county’s required 25% share of construction funds, but Flynn suggested eliminating some of the 800 unfilled positions within county government. The $9 million already set aside was borrowed on the county’s line of credit.

But Schillo said paying back the money is impossible. “There is no way to pay it back,” he said. “You go out and borrow $9 million. That’s great. But who’s going to pay it back?”

Schillo said he opposes using any general funds to build the juvenile detention center, or any other projects. The only way the county will have enough money, he said, is if it leases out part of the land to private developers.

“I’d love to see the facility built, but at this point in time, I’m very skeptical about whether it will actually be built, because there is no way to fund it,” he said.

Several county leaders said the project may have to be scaled down.

Currently, the detention center is estimated at about $64 million. And it’s proposed to be part of a comprehensive justice complex, which would include a juvenile courthouse, counseling offices and an administration building--at additional cost, of course.

“Sure you’d love to have all the bells and whistles,” Mikels said. “But it’s not always practical. I believe that we will have to take a very serious, hard look and say what are our priorities in this center.”

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Mikels said she is determined to see a new detention center open in 2003.

“We have to make this happen, because the county should not lose that $40 million,” she said. “I personally don’t think anybody will get that kind of funding again.”

Remington said he plans to look for ways to cut costs. And if necessary, he said, the facility could probably be built for $50 million.

“We have a crisis in our juvenile institutions that has to be dealt with, and there is never going to be a good time,” he said. “Certainly it’s going to cost the county more money, but that’s not a reason to throw in the towel.”

County leaders have also mentioned the Parks Department and the Human Services Agency as targets for possible cuts.

But Johnston said the supervisors aren’t going to solve their financial problems by chopping at the Parks Department, because he didn’t receive any money from the general fund last year.

Next year, however, the Parks Department could need as much as $400,000 after a special fund is exhausted. The department operates on a budget of approximately $2.2 million, and raises about $1.8 million from campground and golf course fees. Johnston said he plans to do whatever he can to help the county solve its budget problems. “We’re minuscule, but we’re going to do our share,” he said. “We’re turning over every rock to find new ways to do things.”

He is considering selling little-used parks, such as Tapo Canyon Park in Simi Valley or College Park in Oxnard, to raise extra money. But he said the department cannot cut its staff, because it already is short on employees.

Fitzgerald of the Human Services Agency said there isn’t much room for cuts in her agency, either. Most of the human services programs, she said, are mandated and cannot be eliminated. In addition, many of those programs bring in revenue to the county. Out of a $120-million budget, the Human Services Agency only receives a county contribution of about $7 million.

Though Fitzgerald plans to look for places to cut costs and bring in more revenue, she said reducing programs could affect the county in unforeseen ways.

“Even though we are a very large agency and have a lot of staff and lot of money,” she said, “we literally generate millions and millions that come into the county government and the county economy.”