Sheriff Pressures County Supervisors to Approve Audit of Budget Processes

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to have an outside auditor inspect its own and the sheriff’s budget processes after Sheriff Lee Baca packed 1,000 supporters into a county budget hearing to protest dramatic cuts in his department.

Baca’s appearance was a carefully orchestrated demonstration from within his administrative office. Using his campaign funds, he drummed up support at town hall meetings and by distributing mailers and a video among deputies. Baca did not say how much money was used.

If his demands are met, other agencies, such as the Department of Health Services, would probably face more cuts. Health Services is already poised to lay off more than 5,000 workers in the next 18 months, according to Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

The supervisors have told departments they are “taking a share-the-burden approach” to the budget process.

“Public safety should be our first priority. All other needs should be considered later,” Baca said in an interview after the hearing.

Baca said that the supervisors regularly shortchange his department in their budget process.

After Baca addressed the supervisors, they unanimously ordered the hiring of an outside accounting firm to decide whether the budget process is fair to the county’s public safety departments.

Baca and union officials argue that the county has $800 million in reserves which it could use to maintain services. But supervisors, who have sparred with the sheriff all year over his litigation costs and purchase of an airplane, have been reluctant to approve more funding.

The Sheriff’s Department, which has a $1.4-billion budget, will receive nearly $50 million less, according to the county’s proposal. But Baca says his department would be forced to cut $100 million in services because of new operating costs.

The audit will examine the county’s $16.2-billion budget over six to nine months, focusing on the operating costs that Baca says the county is unfairly forcing departments to absorb.

Supervisor Gloria Molina said the audit’s findings may result in an easier fight for Baca in future years, but won’t be finished before the budget is approved.

“With all due respect, we have a decision to make on this budget this summer,” she said.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who said Tuesday that he would oppose any budget for the Sheriff’s Department that did not include substantial new funds, said auditors should be able to give status reports once they begin their work and may find ways to provide the department with more money this year.

But Antonovich acknowledged that the search for new funds may face challenges as the state revises the amount of money the county will receive.

Gov. Gray Davis has “put a budget together with chewing gum and string until after the November election, when I expect us to receive news of even less money from the state,” Antonovich said.

Since budget problems are not new at the supervisors’ hearings, one of the challenges Baca said he faced was to reach the public and let people know he needed their help. In his testimony, he said the cuts would leave him unable to meet his obligations to protect the public, but dropped attention-getting claims made last month that he will not be able to buy all the bullets and gasoline he needs for his department.

The audience hissed and applauded throughout his testimony, breaking the usually genteel decorum maintained during supervisors’ hearings.

“You can boo all you want, and we understand why you’re here, so just relax,” Molina told the protesters. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley had threatened to pull out of his own presentation to the supervisors regarding his budget if Baca’s supporters made too much noise.

In an interview from his office before the budget hearing, Cooley said that he would make a “calm and deliberate” presentation of his office’s request for $20 million to make up for the $8.4-million cut and the loss of state grants, as well as to fund new programs.

Cooley said that the burdens of the budget cycle are all-consuming for department chiefs and that he has been required to spend more time on budget issues than any other topic since the beginning of the year.

“And it only gains momentum as we go along,” he said.

Cooley appeared with several aides and was not interrupted during his testimony at the supervisors’ hearing.