County Faces Bitter Choices on Budget : * Nobody’s Crying Wolf; He Really Is at Our Door

Orange County’s budget director, Ronald S. Rubino, used an apt metaphor when he described the process of deciding how to allocate ever scarcer resources this year. He said he felt like the Los Angeles Kings hockey team, having played hard and done all it could, only to be facing the loss of the Stanley Cup championships. Supervisor Roger Stanton’s reply was fitting, too: He asked if Rubino felt like a goalie playing without a mask.

Rubino and his boss, County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider, have done good work putting together several versions of the county budget for the year starting July 1. Unlike the average citizen who has some idea of how much money will be coming in during a year, the supervisors and county staff are handicapped by not knowing what funds they will receive from the state. That unfortunate situation seems to get worse each year. As a result, the county draws up budgets ranging from painful to Draconian.

One good result of the tough economic times has been the necessity for county department heads and supervisors to look more closely than ever at possible savings. The county benefits from this mandatory efficiency. Thus at public hearings this month, supervisors rightly suggested studying possible money-saving ideas ranging from having private firms patrol harbors to using reserve police in place of deputy sheriffs at the James A. Musick Branch Jail. Some ideas may be unworkable, but all require consideration.

While for the last several years it has been common for those who work for the county to bemoan the terrible state of finances, this year the wails have a ring of truth. Officials realize that in the past they have been bailed out at the last minute, so much so that this time they are solemnly assuring everyone that they are not crying wolf.

Last year, when the county had to cope with a $30-million budget deficit, a mental health clinic in Garden Grove was closed, forcing about 1,500 low-income residents to seek help elsewhere. The county also laid off 30 people and did not fill another 240 jobs. County workers faced increased workloads and taxpayers put up with longer lines.

This year the projected deficit is around $80 million. Officials announced last week that county libraries will close every Friday, starting July 1. Some libraries may suffer even worse cutbacks. Two county fire stations also could close, one at John Wayne Airport and one on Santiago Canyon Road in Orange.

Although Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed letting counties ask voters if they want to continue a half-cent sales tax increase, the Orange County supervisors indicated at budget hearings that they want nothing to do with that. Why not? Their fear, undoubtedly justified, that voters will reject more taxes.

But if residents do not want more taxes, they will have to live with the alternatives that are about to become painfully clear: libraries shut more often, fewer fire houses, longer lines at county offices. The sheriff has threatened to close a jail; the district attorney has warned of fewer prosecutions; judges say there will be fewer trials. A doctor seeking more money for medical care for the poor said the county spends proportionately less on health care than other counties.

Board Chairman Harriett M. Wieder told him he would have to persuade voters to shift money from law enforcement to health before the supervisors would act. Wieder is right; the state’s worst fiscal crisis in half a century is forcing residents to decide between jails and libraries, courts and health care.