Deal a Reprieve, Not a Retreat, Hufford Says

In the final 24 hours before the passage of the county budget, Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford found millions of new dollars that nearly eliminated the spending cuts faced by Sheriff Bob Brooks and Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury.

The $3.5 million Brooks faced in cuts was down to $1.5 million. Bradbury’s $666,400 hit was reduced to $250,000.

And rather than recommending that the Board of Supervisors immediately scale back an annual budget increase they give public safety agencies for inflationary costs--something those departments’ chiefs worried he might do--Hufford instead issued a report suggesting only that he might recommend that in the coming months.

So is Hufford backing off on his plans to rein in Bradbury and Brooks, both elected department heads who wield considerable political influence countywide? These were plans the veteran administrator--who cut his teeth in L.A. County decades ago--had broadcast loud and clear when supervisors hired him in January after being unable to reel in department heads themselves.

Hufford said Tuesday he’s not backing off but acknowledged he may have to delay his plans to peg public safety agencies’ budget increases to the consumer price index. That shift would guarantee only about 2% growth per year to those departments’ budgets instead of the annual 7% bump they have enjoyed for the last several years.

“I think in the long haul, the county will be better served by a CPI,” Hufford said Tuesday. “Whether it’s this year or next year, there is a time when the board would and should do that, but I don’t know when that time will be.”

As to why he’s not pushing ahead now--Does he lack board support? Is he holding off until November to shield incumbents from an election-year backlash by the public safety lobby?--Hufford wouldn’t say.

“The debate goes on,” he said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

Meanwhile, Hufford said that filling in public safety budgets as well as health care programs was something he’d hoped to do all along. The only problem was that he didn’t know until Monday how much money ultimately would be available.

Hufford had needed a budget plan by early June when he went to New York to meet with investors and analysts who had just downgraded the county’s long-term bond rating because of concerns about past financial management.

At the time of that meeting, he calculated it would take about $12.4 million to balance the county’s budget, and he committed to doing that, not knowing how much last-minute relief would come through.

“These were serious recommendations,” he said. “I expected financing, but I didn’t know in what form.”

It wasn’t until this week that the county learned how much state money was on its way from Sacramento, how much was left in the county treasury and how much cash could be freed up by using a low-interest loan to pay off a settlement over Medicare over-billings. Combined, those factors lowered needed cuts from $12.4 million to $7.9 million.

Although the reprieve is a relief for public safety agencies, the sheriff said Hufford has given him no indication he is dropping his efforts.

“That still is very much a threat,” Brooks said.

He noted the timing of Hufford’s report on the inflationary increases, which was released just hours before the final public hearing on the budget.

“Just the fact he brought it up is a very serious concern,” Brooks said.

In the report, Hufford said the county has over-funded public safety by $13 million over the last five years under the existing inflationary increase formula. If the CPI had been the standard, the county could have paid $44 million less, Hufford argued.

Public safety agencies take issue with those calculations. And Brooks and Bradbury have said they believe a move to the CPI would violate an ordinance passed by the county in 1995 and the will of voters who in 1993 passed Proposition 172, a half-cent sales tax to supplement public safety budgets. Even if the CPI keeps pace with some inflationary costs, it won’t keep up with negotiated salary raises, they argue. Those costs will ultimately eat into the tax dollars that were meant to supplement budgets, not fill them.

Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Greg Totten said Tuesday he thinks Hufford knows that reducing funding for public safety would be an uphill battle.

“I don’t think there’s a will [among supervisors] to change the ordinance,” Totten said, “because the board recognizes the people don’t want to change the ordinance.”

But Supervisor John Flynn said he thinks Hufford has a good chance of getting three of the five members to support a move to the CPI.