State cuts $8.5M to L.A. County for services like sex offender registry

2-9-2012 California:

California is withholding the money it used to give Los Angeles County to provide services like issuing absentee ballots and maintaining a sex offender registry, forcing the Board of Supervisors to choose between canceling those services or coming up with the money itself.

In a report released this week, county Chief Executive Officer William Fujioka warned the state does not intend to reimburse the county for $8.5 million in expenses projected for the rest of the fiscal year.

If the county wants to continue providing the services associated with those expenses, it would have to dip into its own strained coffers.

"This is an example of the state's dysfunction and their bait-and-switch tactics of unfunded mandates," said Tony Bell, spokesman for Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

"The state forces counties to implement programs, promises to pay for them, and then pulls the rug out from under counties by denying further funding."

Fujioka said California is avoiding financial obligation by suspending various laws that had required the county to provide services funded by the state.

He was particularly concerned about the state withholding $4.3 million for absentee ballots and voter registration.

"Discontinuance of this program will result in a significant service reduction to voters throughout the county who exercise their voting rights and voter registration privileges by mail," he said.

Other cuts include $2.5 million for the Sheriff's Department, which pays for, among other things, the maintenance of a public website that lists sex offenders, and the testing of jail inmates for HIV.

The Public Defender's Office, meanwhile, stands to lose $630,000, most of it for the protection of developmentally disabled and/or mentally ill adults on trial.

The Department of Animal Care and Control could lose $300,000 that helps extend the length of time that stray/abandoned dogs and cats can be offered for adoption before being euthanized.

State Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer said the cuts would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to decide within the next several weeks whether to pay for the services itself. ..Source.. by DailyNews.com