It seems to be a profession of serious people.

The San Fernando Valley chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors last week held its first monthly meeting of the year in the Valley Hilton.

It was a flat-gray affair almost outshone by the pastel grays and pinks of the banquet room.

I attended hoping to learn what internal auditors are. Their public image is a bit vague.

Dennis Jacobs, president of the group, met me at the door. He was a calm young man with short blond hair wearing a light gray suit. He said he was aware of the image problem of a profession that is relatively new.

The institute, he said, is only 40 years old and is still working hard to give the title certified internal auditor the ring of recognition that certified public accountant has.

Jacobs explained that internal auditors for companies, like accountants, track money and spend a lot of time following paper trails. But that’s not all.

“We don’t just look at the money,” Jacobs said. “We look at the whole operation. We look for ways for management to operate more effectively, more efficiently, see if we can suggest ways of doing it better.”

It seems to be a profession of serious people.

Just as dinner was to begin, someone brought a sheaf of vouchers for the evening’s expenses to Joseph Sykora, the chapter’s vice president.

“You see how internal auditors are,” Sykora said. “I have to sign all these in order to be reimbursed for expenses.”

He smiled to indicate it was a joke.

About 35 members, auditors for such companies as Blue Cross, Lockheed and Mattel, accented their meal with scrupulously subdued conversation. Not even their laughter drowned out the chatter of their two waiters.

Their color scheme was corporate gray. Most of the men wore dark business suits or subdued sport jackets with foulard ties. About half of the seven or eight women in the group also wore business suits of gray or black.

The speaker stood out from the others. He wore brown slacks, a mohair jacket and a badge on his wide leather belt.

He was Jerry Treadway, supervising criminal investigator for the fraud bureau of the California Department of Insurance.

Treadway showed an 18-minute color film about the bureau, created in 1979 to fight an epidemic of insurance fraud. It reviewed the cases of a Los Angeles chiropractor who was abusing workers’ compensation and a Beverly Hills attorney who ran a phony auto crash ring.

Treadway said the chiropractor, sentenced to prison until 1987, was already out and the attorney was still facing trial after six years.

“Some things change and some things don’t,” he said. That was his best line.

Treadway had a tough time getting his footing as a speaker, drifting through complex questions of law and the burden of proof.

After a few minutes he asked for questions.

An intense young man asked the last one. He was Russell Franich, an auditor for Blue Cross. Franich said he discovered that the company had been paying group insurance claims to people who were not entitled to coverage, and that he suspected complicity by insurance brokers who brought the policies to Blue Cross. He wanted to know if he might have a case of fraud.

Franich squirmed through Treadway’s complex answer.

Jacobs then adjourned the meeting. Almost everyone filed out quietly.

Franich lingered to speak to Treadway.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.

A young woman auditor who accompanied Franich flinched at this aggressiveness.

“Russell is very blunt,” she told me almost apologetically.

Franich persisted. He told Treadway that there was a disagreement in his office over whether to report the cases to the bureau.

Treadway waffled.

Franich said the latest case involved a payment of $181,000.

“We want to start reporting it,” he said.

Treadway said it looked like fraud to him.

Franich left with a smile on his face.

On another front of efficiency, there was good news this week from the Burbank Airport Authority.

If you recall, the three-city authority that runs the busy East Valley airport has had trouble of late in the usually routine matter of approving minutes of previous meetings.

Once this summer, paralyzed by objections from Commissioner Margie Gee, the authority spent two hours on the minutes.

In a parliamentary flap that day, the commissioners were driven to ask for an inquiry into why they follow Sturgis Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure rather than the more familiar Roberts Rules of Order.

They got an answer Monday. According to parliamentarian Edwin C. Bliss, Sturgis is “simpler and more understandable” than Roberts and dispenses with some antiquated procedures.

In the meantime, of course, the Burbank City Council removed Gee from the authority.

At its meeting Monday, the authority was a model of efficiency. It dispatched the previous minutes without comment and handled the report from Bliss in less than a minute.

Commissioner Leland Ayers started to say that he was confused by Bliss’ rather abstruse and over-documented letter. But then he interrupted himself.

“I think the problem has gone away, seriously,” he said.

By consent, Sturgis will stay.