Orange County residents just got shortchanged on having any real input on making $10 billion in locally-focused taxpayer funds work for them much less improve their quality of life.
In adopting the next year’s fiscal budget last Tuesday, Orange County Supervisors may have set a record for the darkest budget in history – one that isn’t structurally balanced and denies raises to general workers but grants healthy raises to top execs and a 25% pay boost for county supervisors.
[Read: Orange County Supervisors Now Make More Than California’s Governor]
Now, when I say dark, I mean lights-out dark. This year was an especially fast-paced budget process with virtually no public debate without much public input or analysis by county supervisors on the dais.
Adopting an annual budget is a central function for any elected body – a chance to publicly discuss and set top priorities as a community and force tough discussions about charting a path toward those aims.
But with county supervisors ready to start their month-long vacation and a CEO days away from retirement, the budget got sandwiched in between the year’s most packed agenda alongside over 100 other items.
It was rushed through with a clear effort to quash debate.
And it’s not just me that saw it that way.
‘Outrageously Laughable’
Those are the exact words District Attorney Todd Spitzer used to describe this year’s lack of budget deliberations.
In a rare public rebuke, Spitzer came up to the public comment podium, calling out county supervisors for a rushed budget process that didn’t allow one department head to talk about – much less contest – any spending decisions.
“Our employees rely on a budget process that builds credibility and morale,” Spitzer said at the public comment podium, criticizing the manner in which the annual budget was agendized and approved, as “an afterthought.”
“Let’s have a robust discussion in public about our budget,” Spitzer said before his mic was essentially cut.
Supervisors’ Chairman Doug Chaffee responded, “Thank you.”
After seeing this, I called Spitzer just like I called Treasurer/Tax Collector Shari Friedenrich when she was cut off at the mic the week before – the first time I’ve ever seen independently elected officials robbed of a chance to speak to the board of supervisors, especially about their office budgets.
Spitzer has seen, by his own count, at least a dozen public budgets as an elected official, having served several terms as both a county supervisor and a school board member before becoming DA.
He told me what he was trying to tell county supervisors before he got cut off, noting that historically at the county, there used to be a much more robust budget deliberation process.
Traditionally, CEO recommendations for the budget came out in writing and would be followed by departmental augmentation requests.
You can imagine that kind of variety of official opinions about funding levels – and potential cuts – fueled intense media coverage.
The entire process, Spitzer noted, “put these issues front and center.”
Yet that kind of approach goes against the tide at the County of Orange, a place where bureaucratic executives are increasingly insulated from accountability – a trend I’ve begun to attach to resort economies where protecting the brand is above all else.
I remember when I first started covering county budgets for the Orange County Register in 2004 – and I’ve covered every one since – the entire process was much more open, fueling volatile debates, with hearings going on for virtually an entire week.
Flash forward to today.
“We asked specifically if we could submit augmentation requests to CEO…we were told no,” Spitzer told me. “Now, this board has no idea what our priorities are for any department.”
The real question is whether any of these politicians are interested in tough talks about county spending – especially since Supervisors Katrina Foley and Don Wagner are focused on their November election campaigns.
“All they do is want to get out of there,” Spitzer told me in a Tuesday phone interview.
And despite his kind words for her at the public podium on Tuesday, Spitzer was critical of Aguirre’s approach to the budget, characterizing it as “rush and cut.”
“Prior boards pushed back against that kind of leading,” Spitzer said.
Conspiring to Quash Debate
The most startling aspect of our conversation is when Spitzer said Aguirre told him that the message to go dark came directly from county supervisors.
“She told me the board doesn’t want to have a public discussion,” Spitzer said.
I asked Spitzer if that direction violates the state’s open meeting law – the Brown Act – since that directive seemingly constitutes a daisy chain, which is illegal under state law.
“You raise a super interesting question,” he said. “I need to contemplate.”
I asked a county spokeswoman for a comment from Aguirre in response to Spitzer’s take on her management of the budget process but have yet to hear anything back.
Treasurer Tax/Collector Shari Friendenrich made the same comment to me about a dark budget process in a statement she provided last week after being cut off at the public comment podium – limited to a one-minute speech to offer her take on her department budget, which was one of just a few departments that met the 10% cut asked for by the CEO’s office.
“I am also concerned by the lack of transparency in this year’s budget process,” she wrote in a statement.
“Unlike prior years, the budget materials do not fully present the TTC’s s requested staffing and budget recommendations in a manner that allows the public to evaluate the differences between the Department’s request and the CEO’s recommendation.”
[Read: Santana: OC’s Treasurer/Tax Collector Protests County Supervisors’ Budget Ax After Voter Mandate]
“There’s a movement in this county to limit public discussion,” Spitzer told me.
“A well run county,” Spitzer added, “does things in public.”