Steps Toward a Solution

One year ago Ventura County’s newly recruited chief administrative officer quit in despair after just four days on the job. The six-page resignation letter David L. Baker left behind included a much-needed analysis of the problems besetting county government--problems he considered insurmountable.

Now the Board of Supervisors is taking some good steps toward resolving those problems. It voted to broaden the authority of its top manager, giving the chief administrative officer power to hire and fire department heads. It also transferred some budgetary duties from the auditor to the administrator’s office and created a new position of chief financial officer.

We believe these steps will put more of the day-to-day management of county business where it belongs--with the administrator--and allow the supervisors to stick to policy making.

In another encouraging sign, Sheriff Bob Brooks proposed a compromise plan for spending millions of extra dollars expected next year from a special half-cent sales tax. This is a step toward addressing another matter Baker cited as contributing to the county’s financial peril: the large cash entitlements set aside for public safety agencies under 1993’s Proposition 172.

Ventura County Ordinance 4088 directs about $40 million a year from Proposition 172 tax money solely to the Sheriff’s Department, district attorney’s office, public defender’s office and Probation Department. Baker warned that funneling all Proposition 172 sales tax money to those law enforcement agencies and guaranteeing hefty inflationary increases on top of that “presents a structural financial imbalance which is dramatic and ongoing.”

Interim CAO Harry Hufford shares those concerns, adding that the guaranteed inflationary increases come at the expense of other county programs. Steve Bennett, who will join the board in January, and Supervisor John Flynn have pledged to review that arrangement.

Brooks’ proposal represents a modest step but it is the first indication that the county’s law-enforcement leadership is willing to work with the board to resolve this financial imbalance. We welcome that spirit of cooperation.

Much of the credit for these reforms belongs to Hufford, the veteran Los Angeles County manager coaxed out of retirement to steer Ventura County through the storm. Hufford has done much to put the county back on an even keel but is determined to resume his retirement next spring. And so the board faces the twin challenges of redefining that job for whomever comes next and then finding the right person.

By strengthening the chief administrator’s office and adjusting Ordinance 4088 to reflect a much broader definition of public safety, the board can go a long way toward overcoming the challenges that David Baker found so daunting.