FACING SHARP BUDGET CUTS, L.A. OFFICIALS READY TO LOBBY.

Byline: Rick Orlov Staff Writer

Los Angeles city and county officials worked to protect the city from the loss of revenue as state government officials reached the deadline Monday for adopting a state budget.

Mayor James Hahn met with several City Council members who will travel to Sacramento on Wednesday on a legislative lobbying trip.

``The mayor just wants to stress again that any loss of revenue means it will impact public safety,'' Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook said.

``The problem we have is the situation keeps changing and no one is able to keep up with how it changes and assess what its impact is on local government.''

The state's failure to adopt a budget by the July 1 deadline is not new. It has happened 18 times in the past 22 years and was a record 76 days late last year.

However, what makes this year's failures more significant are court

rulings preventing the state from making payments if a budget is not in place.

For local government leaders, however, the impact will come as the state decides which programs to cut and whether to withhold revenues from local governments.

City Councilman Alex Padilla, who is expected to be re-elected today as council president, said he hopes to take advantage of the legislative experience of two new council members.

Although they were not scheduled to be on the trip, Councilmen Antonio Villaraigosa and Tony Cardenas, are offering advice and contacting former colleagues from their days in the Assembly.

``One of the things both of them have told us is we have to remain active and visible,'' Padilla said. ``This is a great opportunity for the city to take advantage of those relationships.''

Padilla said he hopes to stress two points - how state and local government are interrelated in providing services and the need to limit either spending cuts or losses in revenue.

``We want to see that any cuts we have are one time only and that we have as much freedom as possible in how to deal with them,'' Padilla said. ``It hurts us more to have to make cuts in one specific program rather than having the freedom to decide how to manage it.''

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said county officials also are trying to convince lawmakers to minimize revenue cuts because of the impact those would have on the county's jail and health systems.

``This looks like the only answer they are looking at is to eviscerate local government, and that will affect everyone in this county,'' Yaroslavsky said.