Shapiro for City Controller

Both candidates for Los Angeles city controller in the June 4 municipal election, real-estate attorney Dan Shapiro and community-college trustee Rick Tuttle, have some experience that qualifies them to serve as the city’s chief financial officer. Shapiro deserves election because his financial background is stronger.

The city controller oversees a variety of unglamorous but important functions, like monitoring the city’s tax collections as well as its payment disbursements. He also audits the expense accounts of the city’s officials--a watchdog job that former incumbents in the controller’s office made use of to generate publicity and advance their political careers. But the most important facet of the controller’s job is efficient management of city finances, so ideally the post should be held by a politician with some financial expertise.

Shapiro is the candidate who comes closer to that formula. The former president of a major homeowners’ association in the San Fernando Valley, Shapiro was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to be chairman of his Select Committee on City Budget and Finance in 1983. The panel, composed of business and labor leaders as well as local homeowners, was asked to find ways for the city to economize and increase revenues. Shapiro’s work with that blue-ribbon committee gave him a firmer grasp on the city’s financial needs and problems than Tuttle has.

Tuttle’s financial experience came from his recent work as chairman of the community-college board’s audit committee and his job as a UCLA administrator. But neither of those posts is as complicated as overseeing the budget of a city as big as Los Angeles.

Tuttle can, of course, claim more endorsements by prominent local politicians, including Bradley. But that is not a strong selling point for a city controller, who must always be in the position to make his financial decisions independent of the whims of other city officials. On that point, too, Shapiro is the better choice for city controller.