Walk the garage under Los Angeles County’s headquarters and
you’ll see rows of practical Ford Tauruses and efficient Toyota Priuses — the
ones with government seals on the front doors.
Turn a corner and placards proclaim: “Reserved at all times.
Member — Board of Supervisors.” Along this wall are sleek new Acuras and
monster American SUVs. One, a $66,000 Yukon Hybrid Denali, gets 21 miles per
gallon; those standard passenger sedans can get more than twice that.
The civil grand jury in 2008 criticized the Los Angeles
county government for buying top officials “luxury” vehicles with poor gas
mileage. Not much has changed since. The Board of Supervisors never set limits
on indulgence, like the grand jury recommended. Nor did it track — besides for
one year after the audit — how many expensive cars its workers drive. Now, new
records show the county has 71 percent more pricey vehicles than it did seven
years ago. Supervisors themselves bought take-home autos with features like
plush leather and lousy fuel-efficiency.
“Most local governments are going stripped down. They’re
going bare bones,” said Phillip Russo, CEO of the National Association of Fleet
Administrators, an industry trade group. “It may not look good for your city
council or mayor to be driving around with a certain vehicle that you paid for
with your tax dollars.”
The number of county vehicles costing more than $30,000 — a
threshold set by the grand jury — rose from 452 in 2008 to 773 in 2014. At the
request of this news organization, officials reproduced the list for the most
recent year available.
While none of the elected supervisors agreed to be
interviewed, Patrick Ogawa, the supervisors’ top administrator, blamed the
increase on more expensive technology and “energy-efficient features” that now
come standard. He also said inflation played a role.
“The county exercises strong control over the use of public
vehicles by its employees,” Ogawa wrote in an email.
Officials do now require annual centralized reporting about
who gets take-home vehicles and how much they drive, but the 29 “executives,”
including the five supervisors, don’t have to fill out the same forms.
The improved reporting standards were in response to the
grand jury audit, Ogawa said. But the new policies don’t cover what vehicle
types are too luxurious, as the civilian jury recommended.
Joe Sandoval, the general manager of purchasing, said his
office stopped compiling the $30,000-plus list because the Board of Supervisors
deemed it useless. Instead of focusing on passenger vehicles — as the grand
jury did and county officials promised to do — the list showed all vehicles,
including specialized equipment such as ambulances and dump trucks.
“It was too much paperwork,” Sandoval said. “It was just too
much.”
Executive job perks
The 2007-2008 grand jury was poking around in local
government operations — that’s what civil grand juries do — when its members
suspected county employees were abusing their take-home auto privileges at
taxpayers’ expense. Their findings were wide-ranging: from tax reporting
irregularities to SUVs with excessive features.
“Without clear direction from the Board of Supervisors,” the
report said, officials “do not have a strong incentive to purchase vehicles
that more closely meet the business needs of the departments and are priced at
a lower cost.”
Former juror John Smythe, 84, said last week he was not
surprised the county still had luxury take-home cars. He’s a retired commercial
delivery service dispatcher living in L.A.
“To me, it’s a lot of inflated egos,” Smythe said, “and that
becomes very expensive.”
Not all local governments give their leaders high-end cars.
In Orange County, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens drives a Ford Taurus, and Supervisor
Todd Spitzer a 2008 Ford Explorer. Other Orange County supervisors get vehicle
allowances up to $765 per month. (L.A. County supervisors and department heads
can opt for an allowance up to $656 a month.)
Los Angeles City Council members’ take-home vehicles are
across the board: from a $26,000 Honda Civic hybrid to a $51,000 Ford Explorer.
So who gets an L.A. County take-home car? Two groups:
department heads and elected officials who receive them as an executive job
perk (supervisors make a base salary of $184,610), or other county workers
whose job duties require special driving. A fire captain may need to respond to
emergencies after hours, for example. All their fuel, maintenance, car washes
and insurance are paid for by the county.
In the year ending Oct. 31, 2014, the last time L.A. County
counted, 524 employees were assigned autos.
Other workers check out vehicles from the county’s fleet
during the day. Some of those cars are equipped with GPS devices that allow
managers to track employees’ movements. Take-home vehicles, Sandoval said,
don’t have GPS tracking.
Exceeding the cap
The top employees are supposed to spend no more than $50,050
of county funds on take-home vehicles. Technically, officials then lease the
vehicles from the county for a monthly payment. When leaving, one of these
executives could buy the car for Kelley Blue Book’s low-end value.
The least expensive car among supervisors is Mark Ridley-Thomas’
2006 Chrysler 300. The county bought it used from the state for $21,445 after
he left the Sacramento legislature.
Supervisors Don Knabe and Michael Antonovich each exceeded
the limit when they bought their $56,288 Tahoe and top-of-the-line $65,648
Denali hybrid SUVs, respectively. Antonovich bought the Denali in December
2012. Four months later he was telling county workers why he was wary about
breaking their five-year pay freeze.
“We’re still not out of the woods yet,” Antonovich said then
at a board meeting. “So it’s important that the board continue to have prudent
and responsible financial practices and continue with caution.”
Antonovich’s deputy Tony Bell explained that his district
and the Denali are unusual. The Denali has “four-wheel drive and upgraded
suspension and safety equipment,” he wrote in an email. (Bell left off the
SUV’s touted “ultra-soft feel of Nuance leather-appointed seating” and 22-inch
chrome rims.)
“The 5th District is larger than the four other districts
combined,” Bell continued, “with rural areas and some rugged terrain — in
addition to seasonal snow, mud and floods.”
Asked for the last time the supervisor drove the SUV through
snow, Bell simply wrote, “We feel we’ve responded satisfactorily to your
questions and appreciate your efforts.”
July 11, 2015
Los
Angeles Daily News
By Mike
Reicher
No comments:
Post a Comment