Orange County Budget

A $3-million cut in Orange County's library budget has trimmed operations at branches throughout the county, devastating some and prompting fund-raising at others. The branch in Stanton, for instance, will be open only three days a week, while volunteers in Los Alamitos are raising funds to keep the branch there open five days a week.

As the dust from the first round of Orange County budget cuts began to settle Friday, local lawyers and judges questioned the fairness of letting Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates and Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi recommend enormous cuts in criminal defense services for the poor while sparing their own departments. Capizzi, Gates and Thomas E.

The sheriff probably won't get the 10 new vehicles he wanted, but he will keep his two helicopters. The public defender will not have to lay off 65 employees. There will be money to buy new sofas for Juvenile Hall, but not as many as the Probation Department wanted. The request for a food mixer at the Los Pinos forestry camp for youths in trouble with the law was granted, but the wish for new sound systems in the Central Municipal Court will go unfulfilled. Such are the items in the proposed $1.

With the state budget resolution barely a month old, Orange County is sending three of its top officials to meet today in Sacramento with leaders of the state's other counties for a first-ever "budget summit" to plot strategy for next year. "This (meeting) is something that's without precedent," said Orange County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, a delegate, "but we're dealing with a situation without precedent."

If Orange County is forced to borrow money over the next decade to pay for jails, court buildings and other public facilities, the county's annual debt payment could skyrocket from $1 million to $126.2 million, according to a county report obtained Thursday. That would place Orange County above the national average in per capita debt, the report states, "potentially raising questions as to the county's ability to safely weather future budget difficulties and make debt payments."

A new task force of prominent Orange County business executives was told Thursday that the county is strapped for money to solve transportation, jail, housing, pollution and other problems, and was asked to help find new ways to pay for county government services. The Economic Advisory Task Force was created by Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder--over the objections of some other board members--to help get private businesses involved in the county budget problems.

Despite a slowdown in tax revenue growth, Orange County supervisors adopted a $5.9-billion budget Tuesday for the coming fiscal year that avoided some of the steepest recommended cuts. The budget represents a 6.2% increase over last year's spending. The largest share will go to community services, including healthcare and social services, followed by road maintenance, flood control, libraries, waste management, tidelands and other infrastructure and environmental needs.

A much-anticipated report on ways to cut Orange County's budget and increase revenue in its fiscal crisis will give new ammunition to opponents of a tax increase, according to a member of the influential Lincoln Club, who was briefed Tuesday on its contents.

It was drizzling when I drove into Santiago Park on that early Sunday morning. I had collected some food for the homeless and was looking for some of them who stay in the park. That morning the park was empty, but as I was leaving I noticed two people sitting on a picnic bench holding hands. I introduced myself and asked them if they needed some food. As we started to talk, I realized that they were homeless. Bill was 68, his wife was 57.