HANDS HAS A HEAD COUNT, BUT NO SUM$

Combining official police counts and their own on-line head count, Hands Across America officials came up with their final guess-timate Thursday that 5,442,960 people actually stood in last Sunday’s transcontinental line . . . but those same officials still have no idea how much money they earned.

Four days after the event, Hands organizers continued to use the same pre-event estimate of about $20 million in total contributions, even though other estimates of the number of paying members who stood in the line would seem to put the total over the $30-million mark. At least half the participants paid the minimum $10 to stand in line, according to Hands Across America press spokesman Dave Fulton.

“There’s nothing more specific than that,” said Hands deputy project director Jane Maggin. “I’m sure you’ll hear just as soon as we hear.”

After expenses, all revenue is to be contributed to organizations who aid the homeless and hungry in the United States.

Organizers were only about 40,000 participants short of their goal, but, as expected, the biggest problem was getting them distributed evenly along the route. Ideally, 1,320 people would have held hands in the average mile, requiring a minimum of 5,480,640 Americans to hold hands over the 4,152-mile route from New York to California. But in reality, people stood where they wanted to stand, leaving gaps all the way along the route.

According to Maggin, ham radio operators who called themselves Hams Across America, were stationed along every five-mile segment of the route. In addition to the information they fed back on crowd counts, each of the Hands Across America state offices sent “mile marshals” to every mile along the route to count heads, Maggin said.

That data, combined with official police counts, gave Hands officials the final figures, she said.

Another 1.5 million participated in “off the line” events, such as Hands Across Boston, which drew about 6,000 participants and raised about $100,000 in pledges, officials said.

All told, between 6 million and 7 million actually participated in some kind of hand-holding ritual during the 15 minutes of Hands Across America.

About half that number paid or pledged to pay a contribution of at least $10 to stand in the line, according to Fulton. He said 5 million preprinted, postage-paid envelopes were also handed out to paying and non-paying participants alike along the route last Sunday. The toll-free pledge telephone number (1-800-USA-9000) will also be in operation until the end of the year.

Expenses and pledge expectations have been modified several times since Hands creator Ken Kragen first announced his project last fall. The number of participants needed to fill the line, however, remained about the same from the outset.

Kragen set a contribution goal of between $50 million and $100 million upon unveiling the handholding stunt last Oct. 22 in New York City. All proceeds after expenses were to be given to organizations serving the needs of the homeless and hungry, he said at the time.

Some of the $100 million would come from corporate donors, he said at the time, but the bulk of it would be given by between 6 million and 10 million Americans paying $10, $25 or $35 for the privilege of holding hands from coast to coast. Overhead costs, heavily underwritten by founding sponsor Coca-Cola, were still expected to be $18.8 million.

By January, Kragen had revised the overhead estimate upward to between $28 million and $30 million, though the $100-million goal remained the same.

By March, the total fund-raising goal was scaled down to between $25 million and $50 million in contributions and organizers were hoping to get 5.5 million people to pledge at least $10 and stand in line. Costs were also scaled down to between $12 million and $16 million. Another major sponsor, Citibank, joined Coca-Cola in underwriting the spectacle. Together with several dozen other corporations, the two chief sponsors invested more than $10 million in the project, substantially cutting down on the overhead.

Though the final expenses were still a guess Thursday, Maggin said most bills should arrive by the end of this week and give officials a better idea of what it all cost.

“We had to pay for some of the balloons across America, the porta-potties, etc.,” she said.

Maggin said expenses are now expected to come in well under the $12 million mark that was given in April as the final scaled-down budget for rent, utilities, salaries, insurance and all the rest of the Hands overhead.

No insurance claims had been filed against the Hands Across America insurance policy as of late Wednesday, but Maggin said it was far too early to determine whether there would be any rebate on the $2.5 million that organizers paid out in premiums to avoid accident liability for their one day event.

“As a rule, claims can be filed up to 12 to 18 months after an event,” she said.

By today, most of the 50 Hands satellite offices will have shut down, she said. By June 15, all 17 state offices will close.

And, by June 30, all but two or three of the 500 full-time salaried personnel who were on the payroll on or before May 25 will be looking for another job. On that day, Hands Across America closes down its $9,000-per-month national headquarters on the ninth floor of a Century City high rise and moves upstairs to share office space with its parent organization, the USA for Africa Foundation.

For the past 10 months, USA for Africa has operated out of rent-free office space on the 14th floor of the same office building.

Times staff writer Victor Valle contributed to this article. Breakdown on a Nationwide Connection

Following is a state-by-state breakdown of Hands Across America participants, followed in parentheses by the number of individuals that Hands officials originally estimated would be necessary to fill the line in each state. In bold face is the number of miles covered by the Hands Across America route in each state.

Miles States Actual Estimated Covered Arizona: 200,000 (616,440) 467 Arkansas: 350,000 (425,040) 322 California: 400,000 (266,640) 202 Delaware: 68,000 (42,240) 32 Illinois: 500,000 (439,560) 333 Indiana: 350,000 (361,680) 274 Kentucky: 64,000 (68,640) 52 Maryland: 180,000 (216,480) 164 Missouri: 220,000 (165,000) 125 New Jersey: 200,000 (88,440) 67 New Mexico: 238,000 (529,320) 401 New York: 150,000 (33,000) 25 Ohio: 901,960 (790,680) 599 Pennsylvania: 571,000 (393,360) 298 Tennessee: 180,000 (165,000) 125 Texas: 620,000 (819,720) 621 D.C.: 250,000 (26,400) 20