Supervisors Warned on Too Much Spending

While sternly warning county employees to tighten their belts, three of the five county supervisors are spending more than they should in their offices, a midyear budget analysis shows.

Supervisors Kathy Long, Susan Lacey and John K. Flynn have all busted their budgets for the first four months of the fiscal year, ending June 30, Auditor Tom Mahon reported in a Jan. 12 analysis.

Unless they make reductions, Long and Lacey will each be about $27,000 in the red by year’s end, while Flynn will be $3,338 over budget.

Meanwhile, Supervisors Frank Schillo and Judy Mikels show savings in office operations. Schillo’s office is projected to save $15,700 by summer, while Mikels will be under budget by $11,900, the report says.

While the board’s combined deficit amounts to $31,000--a thin drop in the county’s nearly $1-billion budget--the overruns send the wrong message at a time when supervisors are demanding that everyone else in county government hold the line on spending, critics say.

“The county board has to look at themselves first before they look to anyone else,” said Mike Saliba, executive director of the Taxpayers Assn. of Ventura County. “I would urge the individual board members to make sure they are getting their own fiscal houses in order.”

What rankles some in the county’s 7,500-employee work force is that supervisors gave themselves a 7.7% raise in June--just as the county was beginning to grapple with $11 million in unexpected payouts that account for its current financial crunch.

Chief Administrator Harry Hufford last week ordered a hiring freeze as a first step toward eliminating a projected $5-million deficit and warned department managers that other cuts may be in store.

“The supervisors should share equally in the pain,” said Steve Wood, president of the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union, the county’s largest labor union. “They need to model the behavior that they expect others to follow.”

The supervisors are allotted $2.2 million annually, about $460,000 per supervisor, to operate their offices. Lacey and Long work out of space in the County Government Center in Ventura, while the others operate offices within their districts. Each supervisor is allowed four full-time employees to help them answer calls from the public, analyze policy and schedule appearances.

The three supervisors facing overruns say they are concerned and are already taking action to reduce costs.

But even with reductions, Lacey likely will be unable to balance her budget by June, said Steve Offerman, an aide to the Ventura supervisor.

“Susan is attempting to implement some belt-tightening by restricting travel for the rest of the year,” he said. “It will reduce the amount of overage, but not eliminate it completely.”

Lacey’s selection as board chairwoman last year required her to travel more extensively than projected, Offerman said. She has budgeted $2,000 for conferences and seminars but is projected to spend $9,900 by June. In addition, two printers had to be replaced and a staff member retired, requiring a costly retirement payout, the aide said.

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Personnel costs contributed to Long’s overrun. The Camarillo supervisor said salary and benefit increases that were not included in budget projections account for much of her overage. Long said she also does not hire temporary help--a strategy used by Schillo to keep costs down--because she is opposed to using employees who don’t receive benefits.

However, one of her highest-paid employees, Barbara Berglund, is retiring in March and the salary savings should put her budget back in the black by June, Long said.

“I will live within my budget and I will make a course correction where needed,” said Long, who, along with Lacey, voted against the board’s pay raise last year.

Flynn said he has begun paying all cell phone charges out of his own pocket to reduce office costs. He also has the cheapest rent, $4,400 annually, of the four supervisors, Flynn noted.

Still, it is critical to make sure that his budget is on target to show county employees that he, too, is holding the line, Flynn said.

“I will probably come in with a surplus at the end of the year,” he said. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

Schillo said he returned a surplus to the county’s budget last year and intends to do so again. He keeps costs down by allowing two part-time staff members to share one job and benefits, and by hiring temporary workers to help out when the workload increases.

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He also negotiated a new rental rate on his office space in the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, driving the cost down from $1.90 per square foot to $1.50.

“We are watching every penny. That’s how you do it,” said Schillo, who, with Mikels, is considered to be one of the board’s fiscal conservatives. “Since I’ve been on the board, I’ve walked the walk and kept my budget down.”

Mikels said her experience at running a small business taught her how to save dollars. She often answers her own phone and types her own correspondence. She said she usually employs three staff members, hiring temporary help when necessary.

In the past year, the Simi Valley supervisor said she saved more dollars by giving up a small office she had maintained in the County Government Center. Keeping within her budget is her way of showing employees that it can be done, Mikels said.

“I’ve long held that if we are going to tell employees to hold the line, I have to do the same,” she said.