Roberti and Nolan Are Big Spenders in the Office : Legislature: Expense reports show Assemblyman Bane spent almost $40,000 on postage, but overall he was thrifty.

Assemblyman Tom Bane could be considered one of the U.S. Postal Service’s best friends in the Legislature.

Based on recent reports for a variety of legislative office expenses, the Tarzana Democrat in 1989 spent nearly $40,000 in taxpayer funds, one of the top expenditures in the Assembly for postage.

“I know my postage is high . . .but my other expenses are not,” said Bane, whose overall office tab of $225,758 ranked him as the Assembly’s second-most thrifty member.

The Assembly’s overall No. 1 spender in office expenses was Frank Hill (R-Whittier) with $322,380. The average for the Assembly was almost $275,000. In the Senate, Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) spent the most, running up a tab of $626,286. The Senate average was $477,003.

Among San Fernando Valley-area lawmakers, the top spender in the Assembly was Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), with expenses of $306,596, while in the Senate, David Roberti (D-Los Angeles) topped the list at $575,037. Nolan could not be reached for comment.

Robert Forsythe, Roberti’s spokesman, cited Roberti’s position as president pro tem of the Senate--the top leadership job in the upper chamber-- as a major reason for his higher expenses. “The demands of him as leader go beyond just serving the 23rd Senate District,” Forsythe said.

The expense reports cover about 20 categories, including staff salaries, travel, cars, district office expenses, postage, telephones, furniture, equipment, supplies, subscriptions and photocopying. It generally costs more to run a Senate office than an Assembly office because senators represent larger constituencies.

The lion’s share of the expenses is for employee salaries and benefits, according to the reports prepared annually by the Assembly and Senate rules committees. The latest reports cover Dec. 1, 1988, through Nov. 30, 1989.

Cliff Berg, Senate Rules Committee executive officer, said many factors influence the bottom line of a legislator’s expenses. For example, office rents in Newport Beach are considerably higher than rents in South-Central Los Angeles. Also, he said some lawmakers who represent several counties are allocated more staff or may need to rent multiple district offices.

Other Valley-area highlights:

* Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles), the Assembly’s top spender in 1988 with $332,552, reduced his expenses to $277,719. “I was as frugal as possible,” Friedman said, noting that one reason for his No. 1 spot in 1988 was that some expenses from 1987 were not paid by the state controller’s office until 1988. Friedman’s district includes Studio City, Encino and Sherman Oaks.

* Telephone bills for Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) and Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) were higher than their Valley colleagues’. Robbins reported $35,144 for his office calls. Katz listed $25,349, followed among Valley Assembly members by Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) at $22,395.

Aide Teri Burns said Robbins’ staff responds to many constituents via the telephone and returns calls from people throughout the state seeking to discuss issues related to Robbins’ chairmanship of the Senate Insurance Claims and Corporations Committee or membership on the annual Budget Conference Committee.

Katz, chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, cited his role in formulating statewide transportation measures as one reason for his telephone bill. Katz also said an increasing amount of telephone time is used to telecopy documents around the state. “Phone and Fax is the way a lot of business is done these days,” Katz said.

* Retiring Assemblywoman Marian W. LaFollette (R-Northridge) was among the Assembly’s top spenders, running up a tab of $305,581. The assemblywoman could not be reached for comment, but an aide, Rob Wilcox, cited several reasons including the size of her district which stretches from Mt. Wilson to Malibu Canyon and staff duties for a task force studying the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Wilcox contended that the accounting system was designed to hide the true number of staffers employed by Democrats in the Assembly who control committee assignments.

Said Wilcox: “Often these staff members who are hired for a job for a committee often don’t handle any committee business.” The expense totals, in fact, do not reflect staff and other costs associated with committee assignments.

Said one Democratic staffer, who asked not to be identified: “If someone has a major committee chairmanship, expenses are defrayed into the committees.”

But Robert Connelly, chief administrative officer of the Assembly Rules Committee, dismissed the criticism as partisan, saying GOP lawmakers are upset because some of them “have spent a lot of money.”

Connelly defended the system, saying that the 20 or so categories listed “are the same for all 80 members.” He pointed out, for instance, that while Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s office expenses were listed as $269,392, the expense report also showed that the San Francisco Democrat spent another $2 million to run the speaker’s office.

Overall, Assembly member expenses increased about 4%, Connelly said.

In the Senate, Berg said member spending dipped 2% in the legislative year that began in December 1988 and ran until through last November.

“We’ve just not been spending money, conscious of the public’s concern,” Berg said.

Next year, cutbacks are expected to be much deeper because passage earlier this month of Proposition 140 is expected to force an almost 50% reduction in the Legislature’s operating budget.

Bane, chairman of the Assembly Rules Committee, which is expected to weigh how to make the cuts, said one way to reduce costs would be to eliminate committee hearings when the Legislature is not in session.

Another possibility, he suggested, is to shut down district offices. In fact, Bane said he believes so much in his constituent mail program that he would “rather eliminate my district office” than his correspondence.

Bane estimated that a large part of his postage stamp bill paid for letters to people in his district. “I’ve always been a great believer in communication between elected officials and constituents. The cheapest way to do that is through the mail,” said Bane.

But in 1988, voters approved Proposition 73, which included a prohibition on lawmakers sending out mass mailings at taxpayer expense. Under prevailing interpretations of the law, legislators cannot send “substantially similar” letters to 200 or more people.

That has forced lawmakers to be more creative in the way they communicate with constituents. Bane--in a practice followed by a number of lawmakers--said most of his computerized letters are sent in batches of fewer than 200, which does not violate the mass mailing ban.

In the past year, Bane’s letters have touched on a wide variety of subjects, including alcohol and drug problems, and obscure legislation to require cardiopulmonary resuscitation training for teachers.

“I’d be surprised if there were any constituents in my district who didn’t get a communication from me of this kind,” Bane said.

OFFICE EXPENSES FOR VALLEY LEGISLATORS Office-related expenses reported by the Legislature’s 120 members recently were released for the 1989 session. Included in the reports are staff salaries, as well as spending on such items as postage and telephones. In the Senate, Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) was the top spender at $626,286. In the Assembly, Frank Hill (R-Whittier) topped the field, having spent $322,380. The following is a sampling of spending by Valley-area lawmakers.

Senators

Total Spending Postage Telephone David Roberti (D-Los Angeles) $575,037 $1,768 $26,170 Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) $546,841 $6,858 $21,432 Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) $517,291 $6,939 $35,144 Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) $452,004 $4,219 $18,855 Newton Russell (R-Glendale) $441,030 $4,573 $18,639 Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles) $358,435 $3,385 NA

Assembly

Total Spending Postage Telephone Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) $306,596 $11,462 $12,340 Marian LaFollette (R-Northridge) $305,581 $5,497 $8,953 Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) $284,740 $11,742 $25,349 Phillip Wyman (R-Tehachapi) $280,920 $6,578 $20,360 Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) $277,826 $4,097 $22,395 Terry Friedman (D-Los Angeles) $277,719 $5,945 $16,072 Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles) $265,081 $4,019 $14,400 Tom Bane (D-Tarzana) $225,758 $39,726 $11,442

NA: Not available

Source: Assembly and Senate rules committees