State budget = county doomsday

Warning of a "doomsday scenario" that will affect hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the government safety net for survival, Los Angeles County supervisors said Tuesday that the county faces the loss of $1.4 billion if state officials follow through with plans to defer payments to counties. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.

Faced with a budget impasse and a $42billion deficit next fiscal year, the state plans next week to begin deferring billions of dollars in health and welfare payments to counties for up to seven months. The action will require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to pass.

"This is a doomsday scenario," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. "If they decide to defer payments to us for seven months, we're all dead.