COUNTY'S FISCAL PICTURE PRETTY FOR EMPLOYEES.

Byline: David Greenberg Daily News Staff Writer

A watchful eye on spending, a much-needed influx of state and federal funding and the recent surge in Ventura County's real estate market have county employees entering the new fiscal year assured of receiving paychecks, not pink slips, for the first time this decade.

After approving eight consecutive budgets calling for staff and service cuts, the Board of Supervisors last week approved a fiscal 1998-99 spending plan that included 224 new positions.

The new, $571 million general fund budget, which goes into effect Wednesday, will push the county's payroll to 6,208 employees and will include a $5 million allocation to the existing $18 million reserve fund, ensuring low interest rates on future loans by the county.

``We've turned the corner and we're starting to go back up in terms of being cost-efficient with the taxpayers' money,'' said Supervisor Frank Schillo.

The fiscal picture was not always so pretty.

The slumping economy began to show its ugly face back in fiscal year 1989-90, when the bottom fell out of the state's real estate market.

``It took its biggest dive in fiscal year 1990-91,'' said Theresa Berenger, owner of Realty Executives-East County, a Simi Valley real estate company.

The lack of revenues put the state in a severe budget crunch two years later, and it in turn placed the burden on the counties, changing the distribution formula for Proposition 13 revenues - 1 percent of assessed property values.

Ventura County's general fund, which had been receiving about 28 percent of property taxes, saw that dip to 18 percent, said Bert Bigler, the county's deputy chief administrative officer.

``The shift was totally separate from what the economy was doing,'' he said. ``That was just a means for the state to help solve its budget deficit.''

As a result, the county lost $36 million in property taxes for fiscal 1993-94 alone. Overall, the total to the county dropped from $110 million in fiscal 1990-91 to $79 million for the current fiscal year.

In November 1993, voters statewide approved Proposition 172, which called for a half-cent increase in the sales tax.

The measure went into effect the following March, allowing the county to restore all of the public safety positions that had been cut since the beginning of the decade: 92 for the Sheriff's Department, 41 in the Probation Department, 33 in the District Attorney's Office and 10 in the Public Defender's Office.

``Eventually (the offices) filled the positions,'' Bigler said.

None of the other 284 positions cut from fiscal 1991-92 to the present were restored until the new budget was approved.

Barbara Journet, director of county human resources, said because financial analysts in the auditor's office were aware in advance of pending fiscal problems, positions throughout the county were frozen, so only about 25 percent of the cuts entailed actual layoffs.

``We were able to cut vacant positions,'' she said. ``Many of the (other) individuals did not get laid off because they found employment elsewhere within the county.''

That may have sounded like good news to many, but not to Schillo.

Not long after he entered office 3-1/2 years ago, he said he discovered that departments were asking for funding for one line item, such as staffing, and then spending it on another. Supervisors had also been using one-year grants to help balance the budget instead of for short-term programs.

``You should only operate on those (funds) you can count on every year,'' Schillo said. ``If you get one-time funds, you don't go out and hire 20 people because at the end of the year, the money's gone, but you still have 20 people.''

Three years ago, supervisors established goals and priorities for county departments and budget planning, including a hiring freeze and passage of an ordinance prohibiting the spending of money allotted for staffers on equipment and other expenses.

Any funds remaining at the end of the fiscal year - there will be $13 million this year - are rolled over into the next budget year. As a result, the county will enjoy an overall $47 million increase in the next spending plan.

``The Board of Supervisors was very responsive to very difficult financial times,'' Bigler said.

The surging real estate market, which recorded a 30 percent gain in single-family home sales in the first three months of 1998 over the same period last year, has county officials anticipating a 5 percent increase in property tax revenues for the coming fiscal year.

It received $78 million in those revenues this year and is expecting an additional $4 million in fiscal year 1998-99.

With resale homes going for 96 percent to 98 percent of the asking price and new homes selling for the full asking price, county officials felt comfortable creating 24 positions in the new budget. The other 200 came from federal and state funds and were positions added since July 1997 but which were not listed in the preliminary budget, and those same positions that will be in the next spending plan.

``They appear as increases because this is first time they are in the budget document,'' Bigler said.

With a projected $4.4 billion state surplus and no sign of a letup in the housing boom - 3,050 houses are planned at Ahmanson Ranch, as well as 652 in the last phase of Wood Ranch - the county appears to be in sound fiscal shape for years to come.

``There doesn't seem to be any slow period as far as new housing is concerned,'' Berenger said. ``They are being sold as fast as they can be built. There are waiting lists.''