Sheriff’s Dept. Spared, Library Cut in Proposal : Finances: County budget plan of $3.6 billion for ‘93-94 is the starting point for hearings next week. It hinges on voters’ acceptance of a half-cent sales tax extension.

With a clearer picture of the state’s fiscal woes, Orange County officials Wednesday released a revision of their proposed 1993-94 budget that, as expected, slashes library service while sparing the Sheriff’s Department any cutbacks.

The two-inch-thick budget workbook, presented to the Board of Supervisors in the past few days, will provide the starting point for three days of budget hearings next week aimed at finalizing the county’s budget. But the entire plan will collapse if voters fail to ratify a six-month extension of a half-cent sales tax that will yield $70 million for public safety programs.

The revision of the $3.6-billion budget, tentatively adopted in June, follows weeks of tracking the follow-up legislation on the state’s $52.1-billion fiscal budget and charting the effect on county coffers. Overall, county Budget Director Ron Rubino said Wednesday, the revision includes few major changes.

“We adopted a budget in June by estimating what we thought the state was going to do, and now we’re dealing with what they actually did,” Rubino said. He added that any in-depth analysis or comment on the changes would have to wait until supervisors get a chance to review the figures.

“There are a ton of little changes and a few big ones,” Rubino said. “We’re just going to have to work our way through it.”

Still, some county agencies appear to be in better shape than others. For example, the new budget was good news for the Harbors, Parks and Beaches division of the county’s Environmental Management Agency, which will receive a much smaller than expected cutback--$450,000 instead of $9 million.

The Sheriff’s Department also fared well, largely thanks to an intense lobbying effort by statewide public safety officials that won a six-month extension of the half-cent sales tax. That extension will amount to $70 million for Orange County law enforcement, covering losses that once threatened to close a county jail.

But public safety agencies, which include the district attorney’s office, the Probation Department and others, will lose that money if county voters fail to ratify the extension at the polls in November. In that event, Rubino said, the entire budget will have to be recalculated.

There is no reprieve in store for the county’s network of 27 libraries, which face cuts projected at $5.5 million.

“And this year we don’t have any reserves left,” county Chief Librarian John Adams said. “We’re in a position where we can maintain our services and we don’t see any further reductions. But we’ve certainly withstood significant reductions already.”

Staffing and operating hours have already been trimmed for the beleaguered library system, and officials said some branches will certainly be closed next year if more money is not found.

Sheriff’s Department officials said their situation is far brighter than it was in June, when severe and sweeping program cuts were discussed.

“We’re a little better off than we thought we were going to be then,” Assistant Sheriff Dennis LaDucer said Wednesday. But the future depends on approval of the sales tax extension, he said.

“A lot depends on what happens in November. We’ll be looking at the same cuts as before,” LaDucer said. “It’ll be devastating, not just for our department but for law enforcement across the state.”