County Vehicle Firm Wants More Money : Government: Request for an additional $2.8 million comes amid a spurt of complaints against the private maintenance contractor.

Los Angeles County’s largest private contractor is seeking an additional $2.8 million for the first year of its five-year agreement to maintain and repair county vehicles, according to the department head handling the negotiations.

The request comes after months of complaints from many departments, ranging from the sheriff to the Regional Planning Commission, about massive backlogs, shoddy service and delays in providing information.

If the company, Holmes & Narver Services Inc., receives the money requested, the cost of the contract’s first year would exceed the $14 million the county spent annually when its own employees handled the upkeep of its huge fleet of cars, trucks and prisoner buses.

Holmes & Narver Services, based in Orange, was hired for $12 million a year as part of an experiment in turning government work over to private companies. The conservative majority on the Board of Supervisors hailed privatization as a way of improving efficiency and saving money. The county stopped using its own mechanics, with some transferring to other county jobs and others hiring on at Holmes and Narver Services.

By March 1, $80,000 in penalties had been assessed against Holmes & Narver for delays in repairs and providing promised information to the county.

But controversy continued after that, county documents show. Among the complaints logged by county officials since March are:

A Holmes & Narver inspector said the brake system on a sheriff’s bus was fine. Eight days later, while transporting prisoners on the Pomona Freeway, the bus was involved in an accident. The California Highway Patrol said it was caused by brake failure or improper brake adjustment.

A backhoe operator was left stranded on a South Bay corner all day, waiting for Holmes & Narver to dispatch help for a flat rear tire.

“Depending on him were plumbers, electricians, steam fitters, etc., and some scheduled cement trucks,” his supervisor wrote in a memo.

Fire Department staffers checked several vehicles that Holmes & Narver said were “ready for service” and found many mechanical problems.

“It is imperative that this department’s vehicles be properly maintained in order to meet our public service commitment,” wrote Fred Boehm, division chief for fire fleet service.

County Planning Director James Hartl wrote that chauffeur service for planning commissioners, provided by Holmes & Narver, was “unreliable, inconsistent and a constant concern to the commissioners.”

County Clerk Frank S. Zolin drove a county car to a California Judges’ Assn. conference in Palm Springs. On the way back, the car broke down three times. When Zolin looked under the hood, he discovered the problems.

Linguine Under Hood

“Wow, two belts were broken and all the hoses and belts looked like dried cannelloni and linguine,” he wrote in a letter asking to be reimbursed for $64.69 he spent on emergency repairs. “ . . . I just thought you should know that the current preventive maintenance program didn’t exist.”

The company has had periods of improved service. In April, a survey of 35 of the approximately 50 user departments showed 51% rating Holmes & Narver as “good” and 34% “fair.”

The backlog of vehicles in for repair has been markedly reduced from a high of more than 800 to about 200 since August--better, for the first time, than the level under the county-run program.

But Monday, Holmes & Narver officials and county fleet managers met with representatives of the Sheriff’s Department who have continuing concerns about the quality of the company’s inspections and maintenance.

In late September, the county official who oversees the Holmes & Narver contract called for the county auditor-controller to examine the agreement.

“I am very concerned that there will be serious fiscal problems ahead if we do not correct the deficiencies we are now experiencing,” fleet manager Bruce Mullin wrote in a memo to John Anderson, deputy director of the county’s Internal Services Department.

Internal Services Director William F. Stewart said no decision has yet been made on Mullin’s request.

“If you think it’s been a rough year, I’ll tell you ‘yes,’ ” said Newman A. Howard, president of Holmes & Narver. “I took a lot of beating about the head and shoulders, but from that I think we’ve all come out with a lot better knowledge of how things should operate.”

He blamed some of the problems on “many, many people who didn’t want the contract to work.”

He said, “There were many things happening to vehicles of a rather suspicious nature. Vehicles would come in and go out and come back in, and someone was eating fire extinguishers or taking windshield wipers.”

Said Mullin, the county fleet manager, “I don’t believe there’s been any incident or sabotage aimed at making the contract fail.”

The Board of Supervisors awarded the fleet maintenance contract to Holmes & Narver in July, 1988; it took effect Oct. 1 of that year.

The competitor for the contract, Dyncorp of McLean, Va., asked for $13 million a year to take care of the county fleet.

In August, Stewart said, Holmes & Narver asked for another $3.2 million for the contract’s first year, which would have brought the total fee to $15.2 million.

The company has since reduced its request to an additional $2.8 million, which would bring the total to $14.8 million, Stewart said.

Howard refused to discuss the specific amount of money his company wants as an “adjustment” in the contract.

He said the county told Holmes & Narver before the contract was awarded that mechanics usually got between 300 and 400 vehicles in for repair each week. But the company has been getting more than twice that number.

He also said the vehicles were in worse condition than he had expected. As a result, he said, company mechanics were “practically overhauling a vehicle from stem to stern.”

Howard acknowledged that the county allowed his company to inspect the fleet before submitting a bid for the contract.

But, Howard said, “there are 5,000-plus wheeled vehicles and 1,000 pieces of off-road equipment, in 30-some garages spread over 400 square miles. . . . “

“They gave us an opportunity to do what we could in the time available, but I certainly wouldn’t say we were treated fairly,” he said.

The aging fleet of 65 sheriff’s buses, he said, has been a particular problem.

“Just through metal fatigue, wear, because a bus goes out for a steering problem and comes back for a steering problem, doesn’t mean it’s the same thing that went wrong,” Howard said.

New Sheriff’s Buses

He said he expects those difficulties to subside somewhat now that three new buses have been delivered to the Sheriff’s Department, with 14 more expected in early 1990.

Stewart, of Internal Services, said Holmes & Narver has “some legitimate claims.” He estimated that he would probably agree to a payment “somewhere in the vicinity of $600,000 to $1 million.”

Mullin, the county fleet manager, said he asked for an audit of the contract because the company’s computerized processing of information is still very slow.

Holmes & Narver has not provided any monthly reports of methanol use since April. The county is supposed to pass those figures on to the California Energy Commission, which is conducting trials to test the cost-efficiency of the alternative fuel. The state paid for Los Angeles County, the largest participant in the program, to convert 150 gasoline-powered vehicles to methanol.

Lag in Billing

The company has also lagged in providing the necessary figures to bill individual county departments for repairs, disrupting the Internal Services Department budget, Mullin said.

Howard said he was not aware of specific problems but would check into them.

Mullin also expressed concern about the company’s slow pace in conducting smog inspections. In March and June, he urged Holmes & Narver to inspect more than 200 vehicles a month to stay on schedule. On Oct. 2, he wrote the company that “last week . . . I was informed that you had not inspected any vehicles under this program.”

“This inspection is required, not optional,” Mullin wrote.