COUNTY UNION LEADERS VOW TO FIGHT FOR RAISES.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Los Angeles County union officials, angered by a proposed budget that calls for no employee raises, warned county supervisors Tuesday that they're ready to fight over the issue during contract negotiations this summer.

Both Bud Treece, chairman of a coalition of 13 county unions, and Annelle Grajeda, acting general manager of Service Employees International Union Local 660, said they were disappointed by Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen's budget proposal, released Monday.

Both said workers, who have gone three to five years without raises while making repeated concessions to get the county through its financial difficulties, no longer would cooperate in fixing the county's problems without a pay hike.

On Tuesday, the board spent most of the day on the budget, hearing from several public safety departments and the Health Services Department about the thorny issues they each face.

A plan to eliminate an estimated 1,200 Health Services jobs by making operations more efficient was strongly questioned by Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who said she needed to know more about the ``re-engineering'' effort before she could comfortably support it.

Coroner's Administrator Anthony Hernandez told the board his department doesn't have enough people to do all the autopsies it should, raising the specter that some homicides may be missed.

District Attorney Gil Garcetti said his office won't be receiving $3.6 million in state grants to prosecute workers' compensation and auto insurance fraud this year, which will force him to juggle some senior attorneys who have been handling those cases.