Los Angeles County supervisors approved a $43.4 billion budget on Monday and said they hoped it will fix failing jails and juvenile halls, while acknowledging that the board has a history of failing to successfully oversee hold in the departments.

The budget for the fiscal year beginning Saturday is larger than many state budgets

,

and will fund a workforce of more than 114,000. About $5 billion of the total will flow to the county’s two most troubled agencies, $4 billion to the Sheriff’s Department and $1 billion to the Probation Department.

The budget’s approval followed hours of testimony, much of it urging cuts to the sheriff’s department, which is on track to have one of the deadliest prison years in recent memory. The Probation Service has also had a dangerous year with an increasing number of overdoses and violent incidents.

Monday’s meeting was punctuated by moments of silence for two young men who have died in custody in recent months: Bryan Diaz, 18, who fatally overdosed at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, and Kamren Lee Nettles, 19, who died while in Mens central prison.

The regulators acknowledged that they were failing those in custody, but stressed that they were doing their best to improve conditions with limited resources. Budget officials noted a drop in home sales, one of the main sources of the county’s most flexible dollars.

We don’t provide quality care in our prisons to the people who need it most, said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who called it “unconscionable.”

“It’s below par,” said Hilda Solis. “It’s unacceptable.”

Monday’s meeting was the board’s last chance to change the budget, which was first unveiled in April. Fesia Davenport, the county’s chief executive officer, said three major changes approved by the council were designed to improve conditions in prisons and juvenile facilities.

The regulators approved

an additional $52.3 million to improve mental health care in prisons; $29.9 million to get people with serious mental illnesses safely out of prison; and $117.8 million to renovate Los Padrinos, a soon-to-be-revived youth building that will house most of the youth in custody.

To approve the budget, regulators need a series of votes on different parts of the plan. Supervisor Holly Mitchell cast the only no vote on the budget changes recommended by Davenport’s office. Mitchell had introduced an amendment to wipe out deputy gangs in the Sheriff’s Department, but it failed. The budget calls for the addition of three captains to be placed in stations with a history of deputy gangs and cliques.

“It feels a bit of a hodgepodge,” Mitchell said of the new features. “If we’re talking about a multi

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generation culture shift, it takes more than three captains in three districts.”

Mitchell later cast a yes vote to approve the completed budget, which passed 4 to 0. Supervisor Kathryn Barger left before the voting took place.

The new budget will come into force if the provincial prisons and youth halls are hit by a crisis. The Times reported on Saturday about dozens of explicit videos smuggled out by a prisoner showing brutal beatings and unwary deputies. Meanwhile, conditions for the county’s younger inmates became so grim that a state oversight agency recently closed the two halls, forcing officials to

fast

revive Los Padrinos as a youth hall.

Davenport told the board Monday that the funding to renovate Los Padrinos would be part of a cultural reset spearheaded by the new interim parole officer and that renovations were moving at a breakneck pace. She said the $117 million came from other projects already funded by the probation department.

Members of the public filled

flooded

the boardroom Monday to urge politicians to reconsider the budget. The Service Employees International Union Local 721 wanted a retention bonus to be offered to more healthcare workers working in prisons. Health advocates wanted more money to treat sexually transmitted diseases, noting worrying increases

HIV and

syphilis. Most who showed up pleaded for less money to go to sheriff’s and probation departments.

This budget recognizes that there are serious problems with sheriff violence and prison conditions, he said

Ivette Al Ferlito

, executive director of La Defensa. But instead of investing in the care and freedom of the survivors, you throw more money at the department that commits these atrocities. This is lipstick on a pig.

As she spoke, lawyers in the crowd held signs with headstones on them representing the 24 people who have died in custody since the beginning of the year, about 1 a week.

Tennell Crook

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held a sign with a tombstone and ’15’. The number stood for her son, Kamren Lee Nettles, who said she was the 15th person to die in prisons this year.

I don’t know what it would take to close that prison, she said standing in front of the sign wearing a shirt with her son’s face on it. How many people actually have to die?

She said it was not yet clear from an autopsy how he died. The next person to enter her son’s cell at Mens Central Prison after his death was given a blanket with her son’s blood, Crook said.

The regulators have vowed for years to close the Men’s Central Jail.

Khadijah Shabazz

, who was at a rally outside the Hall of Administration to protest the sheriff’s department budget, said she also had loved ones affected by the prison crisis. Her cousin has been in Men’s Central Jail for about eight months, she said, and was not getting the mental health care he needed.

The money should go to helping mental health, closing this prison, Shabazz said. Locking someone up in the men’s prison doesn’t help. If it helped, if I could see any benefit in it, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Times staff writer Keri Blakinger contributed to this report.