Sheriff, County CAO Heading for Showdown

When Harry Hufford last week demanded $6.5 million in budget cuts from powerful Sheriff Bob Brooks, the interim county administrator knew he was in for a fight. But he was sure it was a fight he could win.

When Brooks refused to accept the cuts, he was also counting on a political victory when the county’s new budget comes before the Board of Supervisors in June. But Brooks may have miscalculated.

Both Hufford, considered a sage veteran, who once ran Los Angeles County, and Brooks, known as a gentlemanly and articulate sheriff, insist they have the votes to prevail.

“I’m sure the board will vote for a balanced budget,” Hufford said. “When the whole picture is out there, it’s going to be hard to argue against it.”

But Hufford proposes balancing the next county budget on the back of Brooks’ popular department--exacting more than half of the $12 million in required cuts from a sheriff’s budget fattened by a voter-approved sales tax for law enforcement.

“When it finally comes down to a vote of the board,” Brooks said, “we will have the political support we need. Our level of public support has been overwhelming, and we think the elected officials will pay attention to that.”

Interviews with four of five county supervisors indicate that Brooks may need to rethink his position.

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Supervisors John Flynn, Frank Schillo, Judy Mikels and Kathy Long all said that they hired Hufford in January to balance the county’s budget and that the sheriff needs to do his part in the effort.

They urged Brooks to compromise further. Supervisor Susan Lacey, who could not be reached for comment, has previously urged cutting the sheriff’s share of the budget.

Long, who is up for reelection this fall and is endorsed by Brooks, recruited Hufford out of semi-retirement in January to right Ventura County’s financial ship. That puts her in a difficult position, she said.

“But I still have to look at the bottom line for all taxpayers, as does the sheriff,” she said. “This isn’t a fiefdom. We have to make sure that everybody is operating for the good of everybody else.”

Schillo, a key supporter of the Sheriff’s Department, said he backs Hufford and approves of everything he has done so far.

“He’s our guy,” Schillo said. “We hired him to do one job, balance the budget, and he’s going to give us a balanced budget.”

Hufford and Brooks were talking until last Wednesday, when Brooks rejected Hufford’s demand for a $6.5-million cut, and declared publicly that he would take his case to the Board of Supervisors, if necessary.

Brooks said the cuts would force him to yank 49 deputies off the street, eliminate a lauded anti-gang unit and close the East County Jail.

Hufford, in turn, declared the talks at an impasse, and called off further negotiations.

“The negotiating and posturing with the [chief administrative officer] is really just a prelude,” Brooks said Friday. “It’s kind of like going through the motions. Now, this is when the political will of the board will be tested.”

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No one is predicting a winner-take-all showdown at the June hearings.

“I don’t want it to come down to a screaming battle in the boardroom. I don’t believe it needs to be a showdown,” Mikels said. “And I don’t believe it’s going to. But we have a lot of work to do.”

Brooks said he is still willing to compromise.

“We’re ready to negotiate. We’re waiting,” he said. “We hope there will be an opportunity to readdress the issue before we go before the board on June 13.”

Brooks said he expects Hufford’s demands to ease over time as extra revenue comes in and the projected $12-million deficit shrinks. He thinks Hufford will identify several million extra dollars in coming weeks.

Hufford suggested the same thing.

“I’ve been accused in the past of crying wolf; I’m not crying wolf,” he said. “But I’ve got a lot of people looking for additional money right now. And if it balances the budget, then I’m a happy camper.”

Almost lost amid the sound and fury of this debate are the dire circumstances that prompted it.

Hufford said he will propose a balanced $1-billion budget next month, with cuts in every department, because the county must demonstrate that it is fiscally sound. For years, it has spent more money than it has received and used one-time grants and special funds to make up the difference.

That prompted Chief Administrative Officer David Baker, who resigned in late November after four days on the job, to warn that the county was “near financial chaos.”

A core problem, he said, is a 1995 county ordinance which guarantees that public safety agencies--the sheriff, district attorney, probation department and public defender--receive all the local sales tax from the 1993 ballot measure, Proposition 172. That is about $40 million a year, with the sheriff receiving about $30 million. On top of that, the ordinance grants public safety annual increases from the general fund to cover inflation.

Ventura County is the only county in California to impose such restrictions on Proposition 172 funds.

“The public safety ordinance presents a structural financial imbalance which is dramatic and ongoing,” Baker wrote, “[and] the balance of services over time will be negative if not altered.”

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A Times analysis found that since 1993, when state voters approved Proposition 172, Ventura County law enforcement budgets have swollen 70%. That increase compares with a 29% rise in the county budget overall and a 32% increase in the general fund, which provides a variety of basic public services.

Few officials have been interested in tinkering with that sacred cow. After all, support for law and order is a byword in one of the safest counties in the West, and 60% of local voters approved Proposition 172.

But after Baker’s resignation and a declaration by Auditor Tom Mahon that the county was running a $5-million deficit, several supervisors pledged to take another look at Proposition 172.

Then, after Hufford was hired as a budget fixer in January, he also objected to any policy that ties supervisors’ hands in balancing the budget.

“I think budgeting by formula is a bad policy, period,” he reiterated Friday. “The board should retain for the public its authority to discharge its responsibilities to set, adopt and maintain budgetary oversight.”

Most recently, Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the county’s credit rating from A1 to A2 with a “negative outlook,” making it more costly to borrow money for long-term building projects such as a proposed $63-million juvenile justice center.

The company based its decision on the county’s $5-million midyear budget deficit and its $25-million debt from a Medicare billing scandal. Mahon said a ballot initiative by Community Memorial Hospital that could drain $260 million in tobacco settlement revenue from the county probably clinched Moody’s decision.

“Moody’s is saying we have a systemic imbalance, and that’s true,” Hufford said. He and the supervisors are scheduled to meet with the bond-rating firm June 7. And Hufford is hoping his proposed balanced budget will show that Ventura County means business.

So, the Board of Supervisors is hardly in a position to openly support Brooks.

The question remains, however, whether they board would force cuts on the sheriff over his objections. To do that, it would have to amend the 1995 public safety ordinance to delete its inflation guarantee.

Brooks maintains that would be illegal, because the supervisors passed the ordinance in lieu of an initiative that was close to qualifying for the ballot. County Counsel James McBride disagrees with that interpretation. But Brooks says a lawsuit is a possibility if the supervisors alter their commitment to Proposition 172.

“These cuts violate that ordinance and raise the legal issue of whether they can be done,” Brooks said. “But the common-sense approach to this issue is that the public taxed themselves for public safety. And if the money isn’t going to be used for public safety, it should be returned to the public. The county cannot spend it just any way it wants to.”

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Hufford said the issue of whether ballot initiatives can be used to specify the use of public money is likely to be answered in court anyway, because the county would likely sue Community Memorial Hospital if its raid on the county tobacco tax settlement is successful.

“The budget and the [hospital] initiative raise the same issue,” he said. “So, it’s undoubtedly going to be litigated. So, one way or another, this ordinance will probably be challenged.”

Beyond the legalities is the reality of Proposition 172 politics.

County supervisors say they want Brooks and Hufford to work harder to come to a compromise on the budget. That is partly because they don’t want to be seen as the board that dismantles Proposition 172. It’s also because they want to back Hufford and uphold the initiative at the same time.

“Ventura County residents put public safety No. 1,” Mikels said. “I’ve heard that the inflationary factor is wrong, but I haven’t seen anything in writing. So I’m not there yet. And when I said I’m backing Harry, I didn’t say I’d always agree with him. But if he can justify why this has to be done, then I’ll probably go there.”

Mikels, Schillo and Flynn voted for the 1995 ordinance.

Schillo said he is still hoping the sheriff will cooperate with Hufford.

“I fully support Prop. 172 and the ordinance, the whole shot,” Schillo said. “But we are in an unusual position. I’m hoping the sheriff will say, ‘I’m willing to take a small cut in the short-term on the idea that I’ll get back-filled in the long run.’ I’m pushing the sheriff to do that. And any additional funds during the year would go to the sheriff.”

Flynn said he thinks a compromise will come from the heat of debate.

“I think it’s only going to get better,” Flynn said. “But I also think what Harry would like to do is do away with that inflationary clause. He sees this as an opportunity to do that, and he wants to take advantage of that.”

As for Flynn’s position, “I’m going to let Harry call the shots. That’s why we hired him. He’s the point guard, and the point guard right now has the ball.”

Long said it’s too early to say which way she would go on a showdown vote. “Until I’ve had a chance to sit down and talk with the sheriff and the D.A. about their budgets and what their priorities are, I can’t go one way or the other.”

Brooks says he is willing to compromise, but will not do anything to undermine Proposition 172 or erode inflationary guarantees.

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The sheriff said he gave up $6.1 million in Proposition 172 money even before he turned in his proposed $150-million budget to Hufford. He said he committed $4.3 million to the general fund--as he has every year--and cut dozens of vacant jobs to save $1.8 million more. He said he also offered a $2.9-million loan to the general fund.

“The sheriff has been very cooperative,” Hufford acknowledged. “He’s been a team player. These concessions, as he sees them, are significant.”

But not enough.

So, when Brooks announced Thursday that he would eliminate dozens of patrol officers, a 15-person gang suppression unit and close the county’s jail in Thousand Oaks, he said he had no choice.

Schillo and Long said they thought Brooks cut the high-profile gang unit because that would catch the public’s attention. But Brooks said he was out of options.

“The rationale is a lot simpler than that,” he said. “Most of the cuts are things added with Prop. 172. They are things we lived without before and we can can give up.”

On one thing, Hufford and Brooks agree. The time has come when budget cuts will mean not just eliminating vacant jobs, but also the loss of services to the community.

“As I see the problem,” Hufford said, “we simply don’t have the resources to provide the level of service this county is providing.”