County Budget Battle Looms Over Health, Welfare Cuts

When Los Angeles County supervisors start wading through this year’s two-inch-thick budget proposal Wednesday, the key battle will be over whether health, mental health and welfare programs will be cut to preserve other areas of county spending.

On Monday, county Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon submitted a revised $9.6-billion spending plan that recommends cuts in those areas, despite a state windfall that supervisors had hoped would spare reductions.

Dixon had earlier proposed a $9.2-billion budget. But that was before the county got its share of a $2.5-billion state surplus.

Dixon said that even with the additional aid, the county will be short of money. His report recommended going ahead with $26 million in health and mental health cuts planned before the windfall.

He still recommended closing seven public health centers and reducing services at a dozen other clinics and hospitals. He also recommended closing two mental health clinics in addition to the three due to close Sept. 1 and three others closed in June because of a shortfall in last year’s budget.

Board Chairman Ed Edelman said Monday that he will urge his colleagues to use $10 million in uncommitted funds to avert as many of the proposed cuts as possible. The $10 million is the only uncommitted money in the budget.

But the board’s conservative majority in recent years has rejected the liberal Edelman’s pleas to put more money into human services and instead has channeled it into law enforcement.

This year, a majority of the board has already publicly committed to spending $2.5 million of the uncommitted money to prevent cutbacks in staffing at county parks.

And, the health, mental health and welfare budgets will be competing with hundreds of millions of dollars in pending requests. Included are many of the supervisors’ pet projects, such as anti-graffiti programs, beach lighting and courthouse landscaping.

In his latest spending cuts, Dixon proposed closing seven public health centers, where low-income residents obtain immunizations and screenings for tuberculosis and venereal diseases. They are Bell Gardens, Culver City, Harbor in San Pedro, Pico Rivera, Burbank, Monrovia and Florence-Firestone.

Dixon also proposed eliminating ambulatory care at eight health clinics: Pomona, Whittier, East Valley-North Hollywood, Glendale, Canoga Park, Hollywood-Wilshire, Compton and Burke in Santa Monica.

The Mental Health Department faces a $6.6-million cut in the wake of last year’s $12-million curtailment. Targeted for closure are the El Camino Mental Health Center in Santa Fe Springs and the Northeast Valley Family Health Center in Highland Park.

The closures would reduce the number of county-run mental health clinics from 28 a year ago to 20.

Also proposed is an across-the-board cut in funding for privately operated mental health clinics.