L.A. County OKs Massive Cuts, Layoffs : Budget: Board of Supervisors spares law enforcement, recreational programs at the expense of health care and welfare. At least 2,000 will lose jobs under $13.5-billion plan.

The liberal majority on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday powered through a $13.5-billion budget that imposes at least 2,000 layoffs and major cuts in health care and welfare programs, but spares many cultural, law enforcement and recreational services.

The board approved the budget on a 3-2 vote, with liberal Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Ed Edelman and Gloria Molina prevailing over conservatives Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana.

Although virtually every department suffered some cuts, the budget offered some relief to departments providing millions of citizens with access to libraries, mental health care and museums. County lifeguards, threatened with elimination at some beaches, will remain on the job.

The big loser was public health, which suffered a cut of $100 million.

“This is a public health disaster,” said Robert Gates, general manager of the Department of Health Services, which will have to lay off about 1,500 workers. “This is a major threat to the health of Los Angeles County and everyone who lives in it.”

The county still hopes to persuade the state Legislature to relax a complex matching fund arrangement and release $76 million earmarked for Los Angeles County.

Without those funds, the health department will begin shutting down four of six comprehensive regional health centers--Hubert H. Humphrey, H.C. Hudson, Long Beach and Mid-Valley--and up to 29 of 41 community clinics as of Sept. 1. The facilities facing closure handled a total of 1.1 million patient visits last year.

The sheriff and the district attorney, who had waged aggressive campaigns against the cuts inflicted on virtually every other department, received nearly full funding of their proposed budgets. With the amendments approved by the board Thursday, the Sheriff’s Department received a cut of less than 2% and the district attorney’s office less than 4%.

Still, Undersheriff Jerry Harper said the Sheriff’s Department will need to close at least one and possibly two jail facilities because of the cuts, which were opposed by Antonovich and Dana.

With the restoration of $8.2 million to the Parks and Recreation Department, all the county’s parks will remain open at some level, although recreation programs will probably be scaled back significantly.

Supervisors gave library officials an additional $3.5 million that will allow them to keep all their facilities open part time. At least 43 libraries that had been slated for closure will stay open two days a week. Operating hours at the remaining 44 libraries will be cut to three or four days a week, officials said.

“What the supervisors did was leave our doors open,” said Sandra Reuben, county librarian. “It gives us life, but we still won’t be able to buy any new books, and we will have to lay off 500 or 600 people.”

The budget also softens the blow to the museums of art and natural history--which had been threatened with sharp cutbacks in hours and programs--and spares the Department of Beaches and Harbors, which keeps beaches clean and employs county lifeguards.

Overall, the county had to absorb spending reductions of about $1.6 billion in piecing together its budget. Originally billed as a $13.1-billion budget, the spending plan grew to $13.5 billion in recent days as county officials received an additional federal health care grant and recalculated the proceeds from several special assessment districts.

Although the county’s budget is greater than that of 42 states, supervisors have total control over less than $3 billion because state and federal laws govern the rest.

The budget crisis took a drastic turn for the worse in June, when the Legislature shifted $500 million in property taxes from the county and distributed it to school districts.

Under the approved spending plan, the county still must exact more than $215 million in wage concessions from the county’s 84,000 workers.

The supervisors also took a gamble when they built an assumption into the budget that voters will approve an extension of a half-cent sales tax scheduled to expire Jan. 1. If voters reject that measure on the November ballot, the county will be short about $200 million, throwing the budget significantly out of whack and requiring deep cuts in virtually every department.

“It is a perilous budget,” said Harry Hufford, acting chief administrative officer. “We’ve gotten through the process, but it’s still going to be a long year.”

The fragility and complexity of the budget process was driven home during Thursday’s whirlwind deliberations. There was one moment when Antonovich interrupted a roll call vote to declare: “We’ve run out of money!”

They hadn’t. A bureaucrat, working on the blackboard that dominates county budget deliberations, had made a subtraction error that temporarily wiped out the parks department funding. She corrected the goof, but not before an aide to Dana tried to blame the mistake on the opposition, cackling: “Typical liberals.”

Thursday’s agreement came together in a flurry of motions negotiated behind the scenes by the liberal supervisors’ staffs.

The board had appeared deadlocked earlier in the week. The impasse was overcome when the three liberal board members reached a consensus that appropriated $13.7 million for the Department of Social Services.

The restoration of funds means that the department will not have to lay off an estimated 2,500 workers, said Eddy S. Tanaka, department director. But the department will still absorb a cut of about $100 million, leading to a 27% reduction in General Relief benefits.

Antonovich and Dana had been holding out for greater funding of the Sheriff’s Department, district attorney and other law enforcement agencies.

“There were discussions, but the liberal members of the board broke off and developed a private agenda,” Antonovich said. “The liberal members have given the criminal element the key to the county by eliminating 800 sheriff’s positions, at the same time saving the jobs of workers at welfare offices.”

Antonovich cited the Sheriff’s Department’s figures on the potential layoffs; other county officials have disagreed, saying no positions need to be eliminated.

Edelman said law enforcement has more than sufficient resources. “What we have tried here is to keep Los Angeles County afloat. . . . We have given priority to law enforcement,” he said. “There’s not going to be any shortage of deputies. If they can’t live within those cuts, they are not well-managed departments.”

Times staff writers Carla Rivera and Tracey Kaplan contributed to this story.