Hufford’s Proposal Sets Stage for Showdown

When David L. Baker quit last year after four days as Ventura County’s chief administrative officer, he left behind a six-page letter that blasted what he saw as years’ worth of dysfunction that was bleeding county government of its fiscal and managerial stability.

Today, Harry Hufford, the retired Los Angeles County administrator hired to turn things around, will present a letter of his own to the Board of Supervisors.

In one page less than Baker took to tear down county government’s facade, Hufford proposes a fix to what he, Baker and supervisors agree is a flawed system that allowed years of deficit spending and end-runs by department heads around the administrator.

The presentation of that plan at this morning’s board meeting sets the stage for a showdown among Hufford, the five county supervisors who promised him the power he needed to do his job and the department and agency heads who have fought his efforts with increasing intensity as this month’s budget talks approach.

Hufford wants 31 changes that would strengthen the chief administrator’s powers--while he is serving as the interim administrator--putting in check appointed and elected department and agency heads and, to some extent, supervisors.

“My goal is to strengthen the organization of the county,” Hufford said.

He is asking supervisors to pass his proposal as a resolution, which can be adopted immediately, as opposed to an ordinance, which requires public hearings and takes longer to pass.

Their response to his requests will be the first real test of their commitment to change, as the county emerges from the $25-million blow of a federal probe into improper mental health billing through the Medicare program.

Board Chairwoman Kathy Long said she will vote for his resolution, because she wants Hufford “to be in a strong position to bring to the board issues, and financial figures, and all the information we need, with no questions, so that we can trust the information.”

But Supervisor John Flynn said he supports only certain portions of Hufford’s resolution. He opposes wording that suggests Hufford should dictate policy to elected department heads and that discourages supervisors from debating policy he has not signed off on.

“I don’t agree on the CAO controlling the agenda,” Flynn said. “We do. He wants to approve everything that goes on the agenda, and I could never buy that.”

Hufford’s resolution turns the overall theme of the county’s existing CAO ordinance on its head. Rather than the administrator asking supervisors for permission before taking action, Hufford’s plan generally gives the administrator the right to make decisions unless a majority of supervisors tells him not to.

Among Hufford’s requests are the rights to:

* Hire and fire department heads, issue directives to them and investigate them.

* Develop strategy on how to spend the county’s $260-million tobacco settlement and how to administer mental health, public hospital and state and federal health care programs.

* Engage in all contract negotiations with labor unions.

* Control information to the media emerging from budget talks, debt financing plans or closed sessions in which issues such as litigation are discussed.

* Hire a chief financial officer, transferring from county Auditor Tom Mahon to Hufford’s office the job of forecasting the county’s revenue, structuring loans and keeping records used to build and implement the county budget.

Even if he gets all his requests, Hufford has suggested he wants to go further in the months to come. For example, he wants to reduce the number of elected department heads by making Ventura a charter county that can operate, in many instances, beyond the limits set forth by the state Legislature.

Hufford has talked about many of these ideas for months. Others, such as the creation of a chief financial officer, have emerged only recently.

While supervisors have mostly embraced Hufford’s ideas, he has drawn criticism from department heads. In recent weeks, his call for budget cuts in the powerful departments of Sheriff Bob Brooks, Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury and Health Care Agency Director Pierre Durand was criticized by those chiefs.

The plan to create a chief financial officer would rein in the scope of the auditor, whose office in recent years had been asked to handle much of the financial strategy and record keeping, while departmental audits fell by the wayside.

Hufford wants to refocus Mahon’s role on conducting audits. Specifically, he calls on Mahon to ensure departments are complying with state and federal regulations.

Mahon said Monday he had some problems with Hufford’s plan. Like Flynn, he takes issue with wording that implies elected officials must answer directly to Hufford instead of voters. But Mahon said he has no problem giving up much of the money management his office has done for the chief administrator.

“This office has for years been preaching that,” he said. “The projections we’re doing are definitely the CAO’s role.”

When it comes to beefing up audits, however, Mahon said he’ll need more staff. Because of a hiring freeze imposed by Hufford earlier this year, Mahon said he is down to three auditors to cover all of county government.

“I’d love to be able to do more, but we have to have the staff to do that,” he said.

Supervisor Frank Schillo said Mahon’s staff will be better watchdogs if they are more focused. And he predicted Hufford’s budget analysts will keep a tighter rein on spending if they have better access to figures and a boss whose only job is to watch the money.

“They have no one to report to, so they’ve gotten cozy with the department heads, which defeats the purpose of having analysts,” Schillo said. “The chief financial officer will force those analysts to do a good job.”