County Left to Cope With Drastic Cuts

Los Angeles County officials are bracing for the loss of more than $586 million in state funds, which will require deep cuts in services and jobs that could cripple the county’s health network.

County Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon estimated that the drastic state funding cuts translate into a 10% across-the-board budget reduction in county spending programs and an estimated loss of 8,000 to 12,000 jobs.

“I’ve been in county government for 18 years, and this is the worst I’ve seen,” said County Supervisor Ed Edelman. “We’ve got no choice but to cut. It’s a dismal place to be.”

Already, county supervisors have had to slice $178 million from the proposed 1992-93 fiscal year budget, and they have said they are $2 billion short of ensuring adequate services.

Additional cuts spawned by the state budget compromise probably will affect the Sheriff’s Department, the district attorney’s office, trial courts, libraries, parks--and, most seriously, health and welfare services.

Advocates for the needy and disabled envision a doomsday scenario in which the mentally ill will be turned away from overcrowded and closed clinics, welfare mothers will become homeless, the disabled will be forced from their homes and the poor will flood private hospitals at record rates.

“We’re going to see deaths as a result of these cuts,” said David Langness, spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California. “We’re seeing the pain spread unevenly, and most of it is going to come to roost in health care.”

“It’s pretty dire,” said Eddy S. Tanaka, county social services director.

Reacting to the state action and the proposed county cuts, hundreds of county workers spilled onto the streets outside County-USC Medical Center at noon Wednesday in what union officials said is the first of a series of planned workplace protests.

And taxpayer groups braced for an attempt by county officials to impose new fees, assessments or taxes to close the budget gap. “Local government has got to live with what it’s got,” said Jay Curtis, president of Los Angeles Taxpayers Assn.

But fire officials are already considering raising assessments by more than 200% to make up $26 million of the county department’s shortfall. That would translate into a tax increase of about $41 per household for the 2.8 million people served by the county Fire Department.

Still, most of the county budget will be balanced through spending cuts, officials said.

Among the cuts in services under consideration:

* Layoffs of more than 500 sheriff’s deputies.

* Closure of 16 of 47 health clinics and reduction of hospital clinic services by 35%.

* Imposition of a work furlough program that would require the county’s 80,000 employees to take two days off without pay each month for the next two years.

* A 12% cut in the county’s home-care program for the disabled.

* Closure of at least 20 of the county’s 92 libraries.

The county’s poor would be particularly hard hit by the cuts.

Welfare recipients, who saw their grants drop 4.5% in 1991, will lose another 4.5% on Oct. 1, a blow welfare advocates said could force mothers and children onto the streets.

“For the last week of the month, they’re already down to eating oatmeal,” said Melinda Bird, an attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “Another $30 to $40 could be the difference between paying rent and not paying rent.”

The Department of Public Social Services estimated that the decrease will drag down the monthly allotment for a mother and two children from $663 to $633--state officials placed the figure at $627--and the Legislature has agreed to ask the federal government for permission to cut another 1.3%. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles County, as computed by federal housing officials, is $804.

The 64,500 elderly, blind and disabled people who depend on the county’s home-care program will find the hours of care they receive cut by 12% beginning Oct. 1, said Julia Takeda, deputy for the In-Home Supportive Services program. For those who are severely disabled and require up to 283 hours a month of care--about 9,000 people--the cut will be especially severe, Takeda said.

Marilyn Holle, who represents the disabled as an attorney for Prevention and Advocacy in Glendale, said the cuts would force more people into nursing homes, which would cost taxpayers far more than in-home care.

Mental health services, decimated by a decade of funding reductions, were dealt a catastrophic blow by the budget accord.

Besides losing millions in tobacco-tax revenue and direct state aid for specific mental-health services, Los Angeles County could lose 25 of its allocated state hospital beds for the dangerously deranged, and at least 87 psychiatric beds in county hospitals. County health officials said they may be forced to shut down more psychiatric beds to compensate for decreased Medi-Cal reimbursement and general county revenues.

The cuts would put more severely mentally ill patients “on the street, in jails, in emergency rooms and in the hands of the police,” said Areta Crowell, director of the county Department of Mental Health.

At best, Crowell said, the public mental health system now has the capacity to treat just one-third of those who need help.

“Pardon me if I sound a little hysterical, but it is impossible for me to imagine operating without those beds,” she said, referring to the planned cutbacks.

For county departments that depend on property tax revenue, the budget situation appeared a little better than expected. But the puzzle was just beginning to fall into place Wednesday as administrators awaited final word on how deeply the state had dipped into the funds earlier earmarked for local government.

County library officials met Wednesday to discuss what appears to be at least a $10-million cut from their $70-million annual budget. David Flint, assistant director of finance and planning, said some of the money would be made up through reduced library hours, a 60% reduction in book buying--or about 200,000 fewer new books this year--and drastic cutbacks in maintenance and supplies budgets.

Flint said at least 20 of the county’s 92 libraries may have to close.

At the county Fire Department, such budget-balancing closures are not possible, said Chief Michael Freeman. Instead, Freeman said, he will seek to make up about $26 million in cuts through increased tax assessments. Another $9 million would be saved by putting off some planned construction and program improvements.

The only alternative to higher taxes would be closing 30 engine companies and laying off 300 employees, Freeman said, adding, “I can’t recommend to the board that we reduce service.”

“You’re talking about public safety issues here,” Freeman said. “For the state to pull the rug now, I think is irresponsible.”

It is unlikely that many of the cuts will be adopted without protest.

Representatives of the county’s 13 employee unions met Wednesday to map a proposal for closing the budget gap without payroll reductions. Among their targets for cuts are $82 million in management perks and benefits.

Times staff writer Irene Wielawski contributed to this story.