ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : These Lips Aren’t Easy to Read, Either

Every year about this time in Orange County, there’s panic over next year’s budget and threats of massive employee layoffs and severe cutbacks of public programs. Every year, the crisis seems to pass after county officials figure out yet another way to patch things together.

But the clock is ticking in Orange County, as it is throughout California, on the financing of local government. Counties--whose primary function is to carry out state programs--have been caught in the vise between state mandates for costly services, such as health care, and the dwindling money coming from the state to pay for them. In the 1990-91 budget, for example, Gov. George Deukmejian is proposing deep cuts in health care funding that could result in Orange County getting $19.1 million less for local health programs. Meanwhile, the county is already facing an estimated $20-million deficit next year.

The Board of Supervisors is severely restricted in its ability to raise new revenue both by Proposition 13 and by the apparent anti-tax stance of the voters. Orange County hasn’t passed a general obligation bond measure for more than 30 years and has twice refused to approve a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects, despite worsening traffic congestion.

Yet the board could be doing more to provide leadership to get the county out of this mess. Board members, for example, say they support putting the sales-tax measure before voters again in November, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. One member, Harriett M. Wieder, has issued a statement saying she feels it is her job to “facilitate the political process” rather than “advocate one position or another.” That’s a cop-out.

Board members know that favoring new means of raising revenue is a political risk in Orange County. But they must step forward or watch the further decline of important services. Without new money, the board is left with the unhappy task of trying to save a dollar here or there and tide the county over with its reserves. But that is a practice that can last only so long. Reserves have dipped to below $14 million, half of what they were five years ago, and far below what is prudent.

Already, the county force is one of the leanest in the country for a county its size. Programs have been ratcheted down repeatedly. Capital projects, such as jails and courts, have been long delayed.

Absent some rescue, the next step could well mean layoffs or cutbacks in law enforcement, environmental management or other county services.