RTD Lays Off 33, Including an Aide Who Told of Waste

Moving to trim a $7-million budget deficit this year, the troubled Southern California Rapid Transit District on Monday laid off 33 administrative employees, including one veteran employee who has blown the whistle on alleged waste and inefficiencies.

The layoffs, which took effect immediately, represent about 2% of the administrative staff and are designed to save $600,000 over the next few months. They are part of a series of cutbacks officials say must be made to bring the district’s $511-million operating budget into balance by the end of the fiscal year and hold down next year’s projected deficit of about $46 million.

RTD General Manager John Dyer, whose agency has drawn criticism for sharp increases in spending on management, said the layoffs were ordered “to make sure the district remains financially able to provide the best quality service possible with the resources available.”

RTD officials refused to identify the employees who were laid off Monday, citing their right to privacy. Officials did indicate that those losing their jobs included four managers, four supervisors and 25 technical and clerical staff members.

Among them was Jim Thomason, a $48,000-a-year administrator and statistician, who was just three years from retirement and who had complained to outside officials about a variety of problems at the agency.

“I got laid off because I blew the whistle,” Thomason said Monday, a few hours after being ordered to pick up his check and leave RTD’s downtown headquarters.

John Richeson, an RTD assistant general manager, said that Thomason’s job was being eliminated by automation and his dismissal had nothing to do with his contacts with outside officials.

It was Thomason’s letter late last year to Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn that led to news stories about RTD employees holding parties while on duty. RTD officials, who have recently ordered an end to the practice, found that last year 276 employees were paid $25,000 in district funds to prepare for and work at the employee parties.

Just last week, Thomason fired off another letter to county supervisors, alleging sloppy handling of finances involving the sale of hundreds of thousands of special tokens RTD produced for the 1984 Olympics. Thomason claimed that mismanagement of the token sales contributed to the RTD being one of the only agencies to lose money on the games.

He also questioned the propriety of two RTD managers--including one who oversees union negotiations and employee discipline--accompanying top bus driver union officials to weeklong health plan conferences in Hawaii in 1985 and Las Vegas in 1986.

Richeson confirmed questions were raised about the trips and that the managers, who serve on the health plan’s board, had been denied permission to attend a 1984 conference in New Orleans. But at the request of the union’s general chairman, Earl Clark, the officials were allowed to go to the Hawaii conference, Richeson said. The managers’ attendance at the latest conference in Las Vegas was rejected “as inappropriate,” Richeson said.

But he said that the management representatives went to the Las Vegas conference anyway, using vacation time and, against policy, with expenses paid from the union fund.

One of the managers said Richeson was mistaken and the use of vacation time for the trip was approved by the district.