The county Board of Supervisors forgave $14 million owed to the county general fund from the Ventura County Medical Center account on Tuesday as part of $22.8 million in midyear adjustments to the county's $1.62 billion budget.

In addition to the Medical Center transfer, the county is expecting $1.2 million from the state to pay for last month's presidential primary election, $4.5 million more in state and federal reimbursements for welfare programs, and $2.5 million in state funds for fighting wildfires last year.

Officials say those moves will balance the budget for the current fiscal year, which ends in June, leaving the Board of Supervisors to start worrying about next year's budget. Those discussions will begin later this month.

Next year's budget will be tougher to balance, with the state budget crisis piled on top of declining sales tax revenues in unincorporated areas and an end to the five-year boom in property taxes brought on by a thriving real estate market.

The Medical Center operates as a stand-alone fund, with the Board of Supervisors loaning money from the general fund if hospital revenues aren't enough to cover costs.

The $14 million loan that the county will forgive represents about half of the Medical Center's debt to the general fund. The remaining $13 million actually represents state and federal government debts for treating poor and uninsured patients.

Most of the debt that's being forgiven comes from the costs of buying, renovating and opening Santa Paula Hospital in 2006, county Deputy Executive Officer Paul Derse told the board.

"We did this knowing that we're going to buy it, repair it and put our capital in, and eventually we'd have to pay for it," Supervisor Peter Foy said. "We did it out of our cash flow instead of saying, Here's a lump sum.'"

Auditor-Controller Christine Cohen argued against budgeting the $1.2 million in revenue that the state owes as reimbursement for election costs.

There's no guarantee the state will pay, she said, and in the past, some election reimbursements have come years later.

The board decided to include the money in the budget after Derse told them it could easily be removed if the payment doesn't arrive.