Supervisors Are Not Exempt

If charity begins at home, where does fiscal responsibility begin?

Not at the office, if you happen to be Ventura County Supervisors Susan Lacey, Kathy Long or John Flynn. According to an analysis by county Auditor Tom Mahon, all three of them busted their budgets for the first four months of the current fiscal year.

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

That’s in sharp contrast to the status of the two perennial penny-pinchers on the Board of Supervisors. Frank Schillo’s office is projected to spend $15,700 less than budgeted by the time the fiscal year ends June 30; Judy Mikels will be under budget by about $11,900, the analysis shows.

To be fair, the Board of Supervisors’ combined deficit totals $31,000--small change compared to Ventura County’s budget of nearly $1 billion. The board is allotted $2.2 million per year--about $460,000 apiece--to operate their offices and pay their staffs.

Long predicted that her office will get back into the black by the end of the fiscal year, thanks in part to the retirement of one of her highest-paid employees. Flynn said he had begun paying his cell phone bills out of his own pocket and expects to end the year with a surplus. But an aide to Lacey said it is not likely that even cutting back on her travels for the rest of the fiscal year will provide enough savings to bring her account back in line by June 30.

The news arrives at a time when the supervisors are demanding that all county departments tighten their belts to help erase a projected $5 million deficit. Newly hired chief administrator Harry Hufford ordered a hiring freeze as a first step.

Perhaps Lacey, Long and Flynn might want to explore a money-saving merger of their office operations . . . on second thought, never mind.