Tempers Flare as Supervisors Press Durand for More Cuts

In a tense opening round of budget talks, an angry Board of Supervisors on Tuesday ordered county Health Care Agency Director Pierre Durand and his mental health chief back to the drawing board, accusing them of trying to skirt $3.6 million in proposed cuts.

Supervisor Judy Mikels lashed out at Durand and Behavioral Health Director David Gudeman for failing to come up with a budget-reduction plan as required. She said that both officials had come unprepared and chastised them for trying to avoid their responsibility.

“This board deserves better treatment than this,” Mikels said. “We deserve better than a tap dance, and this is a tap dance. I suggest you do yourself a favor by coming back another time.”

Gudeman had told the board that he was uncomfortable drafting a plan to make $2.6 million in mental health cuts without direction from the board. He proposed a menu of possible cuts, ranging from housing to the treatment of the mentally ill.

Tensions only increased when Durand later restated his plan to cut $1 million from his agency by closing three county health clinics, without giving the board a detailed account of how much patient revenue would be lost from the closures.

“I’m a little bit tired of being treated like I don’t understand anything,” Mikels said. “I want some cold, hard facts and I want them by next week. Give me the bottom line.”

The confrontation erupted hours into a meeting at which Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford presented supervisors with his $1.06-billion budget plan for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1. Department heads responded by telling supervisors how services and programs would be affected if Hufford’s recommended cuts were adopted.

While the budget is 11.7% larger than last year’s and represents the first time the county’s finances have exceeded the $1-billion threshold, the increase is eaten up by inflation and negotiated raises, Hufford said.

Instead of expanding government, he said his spending plan actually incorporates $12.4 million in service cuts countywide in an attempt to stop a years-long practice of overspending.

His plan seeks to restore the county’s long-term bond rating, and hold the line in the face of $25 million in costs incurred over the last year from a Medicare billing scandal and a botched health department merger. But it has many agency and department managers upset.

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Supervisors heard pointed remarks by Sheriff Bob Brooks and Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury over proposed cuts to their budgets. The two officials argued that the cuts violated a county ordinance that is intended to protect their funding, and could result in increased crime and a decline in prosecutions because of staffing shortages.

The county’s public safety agencies, which also include probation and the public defender’s office as defined by the local ordinance, are being asked to cut a combined $5.6 million.

Brooks said Tuesday he could be forced to lay off as many as 45 deputies, gut his gang-supression unit, close the department’s booking facility in the east county, strip community policing programs and end the practice of putting two deputies in a patrol car at night.

Brooks urged supervisors not to go along with Hufford’s argument that they could legally reduce mandated public safety increases under an ordinance passed in the 1990s.

“He wasn’t there when the commitments were made to the public and he won’t be there when the consequences of breaking those commitments occur,” the sheriff said. Former Sheriff Larry Carpenter also appeared Tuesday to criticize that plan.

Bradbury said he probably would only be able to staff 11 lawyers to prosecute misdemeanors, rather than 17, under Hufford’s budget plan.

But Brooks and Bradbury both also talked about their respect for Hufford, and laced their criticism with backhanded compliments.

“I like the CAO,” Brooks said. “We had coffee together this morning and he paid. It’s probably the only thing I’ll get out of him.”

Bradbury joked about a photograph of Hufford that The Times often runs accompanying county stories. “It’s getting a little tiresome seeing his smiling face staring out in the newspapers every morning,” he said. “Budgets are being slashed and burned, and Harry’s still smiling.”

As a prosecutor held up a doctored photograph of Hufford, Bradbury said the administrator “feels he’s under siege, and I don’t understand why.” The photograph was made up like a police mug shot.

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During the budget meeting, Public Defender Ken Clayman told supervisors that with three pending death penalty cases and an expected increase in juvenile prosecutions, he needed an additional lawyer, not fewer.

Other department heads also may feel Hufford’s proposed cuts, including the auditor’s office and the Human Services Agency. Assessor Dan Goodwin argued that he should not lose eight positions at a time when residential and commercial construction is strong and property values are up, meaning increased assessments for the county.

But it is the tug between health care and public safety that is expected to be the most difficult, as supervisors, Hufford and agency heads negotiate to mitigate cuts between now and a June 26 budget hearing.

“There’s clear competition between the justice agencies and HCA,” Hufford said. “The question is, where can the relief come from? What the board has to do is establish some priorities.”

The board did get some good news though. Just before the budget talks, board Chairwoman Kathy Long announced that the Wall Street investment firm Standard & Poor’s had lifted the credit warning it had recently placed on the county. Such warnings can increase the amount of interest that the county pays when it borrows money for projects.

S&P; also renewed the county’s short-term rating on a $90-million bond at 1+, the highest rating possible, agency director Parry Young said.

Although the agency reviews the rating annually, the decision to renew the high rating came a week after the agency’s investors met with Hufford, County Auditor Tom Mahon, County Counsel Jim McBride and Supervisors Mikels and Long. Hufford had stressed to analysts his commitment to get the budget in balance.

The county is still waiting to hear if there’s any change from Moody’s Investors Service, which recently downgraded the county’s long-term bond rating and gave the county’s finances a negative outlook.

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Times Community News reporter Gina Piccalo contributed to this report.