PIC Board Votes Raise for Leader--After He Quits

The Los Angeles Private Industry Council has approved spending government funds to grant a 4% salary increase to its embattled president, Dominick J. Ramos--after citing poor performance and persuading him last November to resign.

Scheduled to leave his $73,627-a-year job late next month, Ramos has also traveled to Washington at public expense to try to restore his reputation, also with board approval.

The troubled job-training agency has been paralyzed since Jan. 13 when Mayor Tom Bradley announced plans to replace most of the board members with top business executives and eliminate its $1.1-million operating budget. Bradley has not yet appointed the new directors; his plan to dismantle the program has been stalled before the City Council’s Grants Committee, and four of the agency’s six meetings were canceled last month because of poor attendance.

Use Federal Funds

The city and the Private Industry Council, known as PIC, jointly distribute $42 million a year in federal funds to job-training centers for the poor and unemployed.

On Feb. 18, the PIC board of directors approved a cost-of-living increase retroactive to July 1 for 11 employees, including Ramos, whose resignation becomes effective April 30. The City Council Grants Committee on Wednesday removed Ramos’ $2,209 raise before sending the pay increase to the full council for approval.

“Because of the allegations made (against Ramos) . . . I don’t see the will in the City Council to approve a 4% increase for an employee who was basically terminated and given until April to leave,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre, a member of the Grants Committee. “I just don’t think that it is proper under those circumstances. But I don’t want that issue to cloud the fact that the regular employees should in fact be given a 4% raise.”

PIC Chairman Robert J. Clark said the agency’s employees receive the same cost-of-living increases as city workers and he saw no reason to exclude Ramos.

Cite Poor Judgment

Ramos submitted his resignation Nov. 30 after the Private Industry Council board of directors--citing poor judgment and performance--gave him a choice of quitting his position or being forced out. The board members said they refused to fire Ramos because they had no evidence to support allegations that he mishandled a $160,000 marketing contract, solicited political campaign contributions from his staff, lied on his resume and improperly used government funds to purchase a new Lincoln Continental.

The board’s executive committee voted to change Ramos’ contract in January to include a provision that would allow him to spend $400 a month in car allowances for his 1986 Continental without violating Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service regulations. To give Ramos the 4% pay increase, the Private Industry Council will have to resubmit the matter to the Grants Committee.

“Usually people are given raises and increases when they are being rewarded for their performance,” said John Mack, who is president of the Los Angeles Urban League and a PIC board member who has missed several meetings. “I think the PIC would be hard pressed to make a case at this point in time that Dominick should be rewarded by a raise.”

The Private Industry Council sent Ramos and two of its board members to a National Alliance of Business conference in Washington on Feb. 6-8, despite Bradley’s plans to name a new board in coming weeks. Ramos was reimbursed $819 in expenses for the trip, records show.

Clark said he invited several other board members to the conference, but they declined. He said the board decided to attend because the funds were part of the agency’s travel budget and the conference served as a useful exchange with PIC members from other cities.

“Dominick was back there to prove his own reputation nationally so that the PIC (in Los Angeles) doesn’t look like a stupid bunch of idiots,” Clark said. “It is too easy for people to listen to the bad side of gossip, to say he really did bad. . . . He just had a chance to say his piece.”

Clark was among several Bradley appointees on the board who criticized the mayor’s office for its consistent lack of organization and leadership. They cited as recent examples Bradley’s failure to notify the board of his intention to overhaul the agency and an apology delivered to each board member for the harsh tone of a Jan. 14 letter signed by Bradley that warned the board not to retaliate against a whistle blower who had raised allegations against Ramos.

Michael Gage, a deputy mayor and Bradley’s chief of staff, said Bradley directed an aide to make the apologies at the same time he signed the letter. He said the letters were not rewritten because they needed to be sent out immediately.

“I felt it was an abrasive, tersely written letter written by an attorney in the city attorney’s office that did not recognize that (Bradley) also is talking to friends and colleagues, and there are ways of saying exactly the same thing with a scalpel as opposed to a meat ax,” Gage said.

But the attorney, Deputy City Atty. Jessica Heinz, said that members of her office and the mayor’s office, including Gage, worked together over several days drafting the letter. She said both sides agreed that it was important that the PIC board members take the warning seriously.