SURPLUS TO COVER CAPITAL PROJECTS $17 MILLION TO FUND RETIREE HEALTH LIABILITIES.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

With Los Angeles County coffers overflowing with an extra $238 million in property tax and other revenue, the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to set aside most of the money for capital projects and allocate $17 million for retiree health liabilities.

The supervisors also agreed to spend more for staffing and security at probation camps, staffing for the identity-theft task force, expanding the county cable channel and saturating unincorporated areas with gang-suppression units.

The county is paying for the smorgasbord out of a $1.1billion surplus amassed this year, mainly a result of increased property tax collections.

Earlier this year, the supervisors allocated the balance of the $1.1billion on programs to help the homeless, hire hundreds of sheriff's deputies and improve the jails, juvenile halls and camps.

Since then, the county has collected an unexpected $238 million more in property tax and other revenues, boosting the county's total budget this fiscal year to $21billion.

``It's more than we planned on in June,'' Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said. ``It involves additional property taxes, additional penalties and additional unspent funds from the departments. Almost all of it, except $10 million, will be going into one-time expenditures, and the $10million is primarily for the Probation Department.''

In an effort to address rising unfunded liabilities to provide health care to its retirees, the supervisors set aside $17 million.

Last year, the county grand jury estimated the county's unfunded liability for its retirees' health costs at $9billion.

On Tuesday, the California Healthcare Foundation released a study that found that most public agencies have not set aside funds to pay for health coverage promised to current employees when they retire.

It noted that counties, cities and schools could be forced to make large cuts in services in the years ahead to pay for the promises.

Using conservative estimates, retiree health care costs for public employees in California are expected to reach $31billion per year by 2020, according to the report.

Using the surplus, the supervisors also approved spending $1million to hire more investigators and prosecutors to combat identity theft. As one of the region's fastest-growing crimes, the number of identity-theft cases soared to more than 25,000 last year, but only a fraction of the cases are prosecuted.

The supervisors also approved giving the Probation Department about $24million to hire more staffers, reduce staff ratios at the camps and improve security at the juvenile halls where violence and escapes have soared in recent years.

With the additional staffers and funding, Probation Department Director Robert Taylor said his agency is undergoing a change in the organizational culture.

``When it comes to changing offenders' criminal behavior, there is no silver bullet,'' Taylor said. ``We have to look at some of the things we have done in the past and ask ourselves if those practices have been helpful, or in some instances if they have actually caused harm.''

The supervisors also approved an $80million spending plan to fight homelessness, including an $800,000 outreach campaign to deal with community opposition to locating regional homeless stabilization centers throughout the county.

Janssen said some communities in the South Bay have recently expressed an eagerness to work with the county to locate a center in their area.

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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