Faced with a gaping budget deficit, Orange County officials disclosed plans Tuesday to lay off nearly 60 Probation Department employees and to start releasing some juvenile criminal suspects rather than holding them in juvenile hall.
Word of the cutbacks came the same day that 1,000 angry workers stormed the Orange County Hall of Administration to protest previously announced plans to lay off 210 social services employees.
The social services cuts stem from a steep reduction in state funding that county officials said left them with no option but to eliminate jobs. In addition to the layoffs, the county has disclosed plans to require 4,000 social services employees to take two weeks off without pay next year.
Chanting "Chop at the top!" members of the Orange County Employees Assn. and other government unions filled the fifth-floor lobby outside the offices of the Board of Supervisors in Santa Ana and implored them to search for alternatives to layoffs.
Nick Berardino, general manager of the Orange County employees union, delivered a letter to supervisors asking them to cut perks for managers, including car allowances and planned pay raises, to save jobs.
At one point, the chanting became so loud that Darlene Bloom, the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, confronted Berardino and told him the demonstration was causing a disruption to county workers.
"We do have business going on. Keep it down," she said.
"There's no more important business than this," Berardino said, leading his troops in thunderous chants critical of the planned layoffs.
A few minutes later, Berardino squared off with Mario Mainero, chief of staff for Supervisor John Moorlach and suggested that the county could have avoided some of the layoffs if it had not spent more than $300,000 to remodel the supervisors' lobby.
"While they're putting out single moms with families, look what they've done here. They're going to make this the most beautiful lobby in the state of California for the Board of Supervisors," Berardino said.
Mainero accused Berardino of misleading employees and failing to note that the county launched the remodeling project after Santa Ana fire inspectors cited the county for failing to have proper access to stairwells from the lobby.
"You're misusing the facts, and you know it," Mainero said.
