Eerie Calm Is Settling In After County’s Budget Wars

Congratulations are in order to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, to interim Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford and to the other participants in the annual ritual and budget dance that accompanies the start of another fiscal year in government.

Contrary to the earlier image of all-out warfare among the various factions involved, who were--of course--jealously defending their turf and encouraged by their constituents and employees, it seems that--after all the sound and fury--an eerie calm has settled over county government (aside from the continuing tobacco wars).

Everyone has come out a winner as the smoke clears from the budget battlefield. Yet at the beginning of the struggle to fashion a balanced budget amid fiscal problems of the county’s own making, complicated by the attempted hijacking by Community Memorial Hospital and its partners in crime of public money at the expense of the indigents so faithfully served by the Board of Supervisors, it looked like spectators were going to be treated to a slugfest never before witnessed in these environs.

But Hufford has proven his worth to the board and has cemented his reputation as a problem solver of the first rank principally by his hardball negotiating with various county barons such as the district attorney and sheriff, all of whom take it personally when their budgets are cut back. So much the worse when the one doing the fiscal surgery is an outsider, which is exactly why the supervisors brought in Hufford in the first place.

It’s a nasty job, but someone had to do it. And who better than someone with nothing to prove and who lacks local affiliations?

Like the expert negotiator he is, Hufford presented his worst-case budget proposal so that, when the final outcome was less painful, he came out looking like a hero instead of the black-garbed villain from out of town.

So the county, at least for the time being, has been positioned for fiscal stability and austerity, and the Board of Supervisors deserves our praise for a job well done. Hufford remains the knight in shining armor who rescued the damsel in distress, and Sir Harry can now venture forth in search of other dragons to conquer.

The only question that is probably giving the supervisors fits is who will succeed the dragon slayer, who has already declared his ambition is not to remain as CAO but to sally forth into the wilds of retirement.

And unless he changes his mind and does everyone in Ventura County a favor, we owe him a debt of gratitude for a job well done.