California - News from June 8, 2009

Job protections arranged for termed-out Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo’s inner circle of aides could complicate his successor’s effort to take charge of the office just as the city grapples with major budget cuts, records and interviews show.

Typically, several top members of the city attorney’s staff are political appointees. They serve without job protections and leave with the elected official. Indeed, earlier in his term, a number of Delgadillo’s key aides served without job protections, including a previous chief of staff, top legal assistants and a communication director.

But in recent years, all of Delgadillo’s top staffers have been placed on tenure tracks, allowing them to secure civil service-like job protection rights. The aides, typically paid between $100,000 and $200,000 annually, hope to retain their current positions or serve in other assignments after City Atty.-elect Carmen Trutanich takes office, said Delgadillo’s communication director, Nick Velasquez.

The office’s senior legal aides are highly qualified and experienced, said Velasquez, who has received tenure and plans to stay.

Delgadillo “thinks the city is lucky to have such top-flight attorneys working tirelessly on city residents’ behalf,” he said. “That’s why they were tenured.”

Trutanich’s key transition advisors were delving into the hiring and budget issues last week and had just begun to ask questions.

“How many . . . of the [top aides] that the city attorney did bring into the office remain and in what positions?” asked Bill Carter, a former federal prosecutor Trutanich has picked to head his city staff. “And what impacts does that have on the ability of the new city attorney to do what he needs to do?”

When Delgadillo took office in 2001, several of former City Atty. James K. Hahn’s senior aides -- including chief of staff Tim McOsker -- moved with Hahn to the mayor’s office. But Velasquez said most of Hahn’s top appointees remained in the city attorney’s office with tenure, which he portrayed as normal. He said city attorneys are allowed to appoint aides as either tenured or nontenured employees.

One complicating factor in the current transition, several observers noted, is that Delgadillo is not moving to another political office, where he could take some top appointees.

Also, Trutanich is entering office in a far darker time than his predecessors. There is a citywide hiring freeze. Trutanich may have to seek permission to appoint aides from a special cost-control panel. And with the office’s top jobs filled, he also may need additional salary allocations from the mayor and City Council, just as the ravages of recession are forcing furloughs, job reductions and service cuts.

Paying for up to eight senior Trutanich appointees, as authorized under the City Charter, could cost $1 million a year or more. Velasquez said Delgadillo’s staff is working to help secure the resources Trutanich’s team needs and hopes to resolve the matter before the new city attorney is sworn in July 1.

But which and how many positions Trutanich will be able to fill is not yet clear.

Trutanich was not available for comment.

At this point, only Delgadillo and Ann D’Amato, a top advisor working as a $175,000-a-year contractor, are leaving the office, records and interviews show.

Among those planning to stay are chief of staff Richard Llewellyn, an attorney paid a little less than $205,000 annually; chief administrative and financial officer Jennifer Krieger, paid $144,000; assistant city attorney Ben Austin, a political consultant and part-time advisor paid $89,000; and Velasquez, who is paid $118,000. Currently, only one position is authorized for each of the job classifications held by Llewellyn and Krieger.

With tenure, they and other employees have seniority rights and can be dismissed only for cause.

Trutanich, who campaigned on ambitious plans to overhaul one of the largest government law offices in the nation, comes in facing an estimated 18% budget cut, officials said.

“The funding issues are essential,” said Jane Usher, executive director of Trutanich’s transition team. “The challenge will be understanding that budget and finding the best methods of providing excellence.”

Usher and other Trutanich advisors declined to discuss the Delgadillo aides staying behind.

What those staffers will do in the new administration, Velasquez said, “will be up to the next city attorney within normal personnel guidelines.”

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rich.connell@latimes.com