Taxpayers Group to Urge Board Review

Saying reforms are needed to restore the county’s long-term financial stability, the head of a Ventura County taxpayers group will urge the Board of Supervisors today to examine how it shares power with other top officials.

The board needs to formally review its relationship with the county’s chief administrative office, something it has not done for 20 years, said Mike Saliba of the Ventura County Taxpayer’s Assn. It also must review the roles of the county’s auditor-controller, currently Tom Mahon, and department heads to make sure each provides reliable information to supervisors, Saliba said.

Saliba declined to give details on the group’s recommendations, saying its board of directors would not finalize the proposal until a special meeting late Monday. The group was prompted to act by the recent airing of organizational and financial problems in county government by short-lived administrator David L. Baker.

In a six-page letter, Baker charged that the chief administrative office is so weak that it cannot keep a rein on the county’s nearly $1-billion budget. Baker outlined other areas hampering the county’s ability to achieve long-term financial security. The administrator, who came from a similar job in San Joaquin County, quit after four days.

Many of the issues in Baker’s letter are valid and are well-known to the Taxpayer’s Assn., Saliba said.

For instance, the group has routinely objected to an abundance of vacant positions in the county’s budget and to the practice of rolling unspent dollars into the next year’s budget, Saliba said.

The county has responded with minor changes, such as making its budget more readable, Saliba said. But much more needs to be done, particularly in defining what the chief administrative officer and the auditor-controller should be doing, he said.

“The CAO and the auditor-controller need to have a set of unified statistics that supervisors can rely on to make policy decisions,” Saliba said.

The board will meet at 8:30 a.m. in the boardroom at the County Government Center, 800 Victoria Ave.