to Ventura County. (Ordinance, § 1.) The Ordinance specifies the amounts of the budgets for the 1995-1996 fiscal year for the following Ventura County public safety agencies: "District Attorney, Sheriff, Corrections, Public Defender, and Ventura County Fire Protection District only." (Id., §§ 3 & 7.) "These amounts shall be known as the `Base Year Budgets' of the respective agencies." (Id., § 3.) Section 4 of the Ordinance provides: "For subsequent years the budget for each Public Safety Agency shall, at a minimum, be one hundred percent of the Base Year Budget plus any associated inflationary costs." The Ordinance does not define "associated inflationary costs." Section 5 of the Ordinance provides: "That portion of a Public Safety Agency's Base Year Budget funded by General Fund Appropriations, plus any associateduse the Consumer Price Index for all items for the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County area as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor (hereafter CPI). The change in calculation was recommended by Harry L. Hufford, the Interim Chief Administrative Officer. In a March 2001 letter to appellant, Hufford warned: "Public safety departments are increasingly consuming more net county cost and experiencing continual General Fund budgetary growth. Public Safety's net cost increased over a six-year period from 48% of total net county cost to 58%. On the other hand, non-public safety net cost decreased from 52% to 42%. [¶] Without a revision to the ordinance inflation factor definition, it is expected that the identified net cost disparity would continue to widen in the