Zoo Workers Ridicule Training Tasks : Investigation: But state funding agency’s inquiry, beginning today, will focus on possible fraud in retraining contract.

“You need $45 cash for two tickets to see 50 Elvis impersonators. Cash a personal check for the money,” one assignment sheet reads.

“Locate three emergency telephones near your work area,” another says.

And another, “You find a gopher in your enclosure, and it is not one that houses gophers. Get help to remove/exterminate it.”

These assignments were among the on-the-job exercises that 168 animal keepers at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park were required to complete as part of a controversial $621,600 state-paid job retraining program, according to program work sheets obtained by The Times.

Although zoo administrators say the exercises were necessary for even experienced or college-educated keepers, 14 of those who took the course have told The Times the assignments were indicative of a 37-week course that sometimes bordered on the ridiculous and taught them little, if anything, new.

“The content was ludicrous,” said Linda Feroz, a zoo primate keeper since 1984 who is now on disability for a back injury. “It was redundant. It was information that we all basically already knew.”

The zoo administrator in charge of the program defended the course as a “pilot” program that had some initial hitches but ultimately proved useful in making sure employees had uniform information--even if it was about such routine things as cashing checks.

“The location of emergency fire extinguishers, the emergency phones, being able to interact with the different departments, knowing where to cash a personal check for the employees’ benefit . . . is valid information for them to know,” said Diane Ledder, the training coordinator.

The retraining program is now under review by the state’s Employment Training Panel because of allegations of fraud and misstatements in the zoo contract. The ETP, which pays for training programs to reduce joblessness, has suspended $132,275 in zoo contract payments and will begin meeting with zoo officials today to discuss the alleged irregularities.

The state probe comes in response to inquiries by The Times, which heard the allegations from more than a dozen keepers unhappy with the program. The keepers said that zoo management was aware of--and in some cases encouraged--animal keepers to falsify on-the-job assignments so the zoo could receive the state money.

The agency also is examining allegations that zoo administrators exaggerated the threat of layoffs on their original 1989 application for the funds, and that they improperly billed the state for non-keepers who took the course.

State records show that the ETP looked into related allegations once before. Documents in Sacramento show that the agency received an anonymous tip about contract irregularities, but its first probe turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.

But a three-page report of the investigation also shows it was conducted by a law clerk who talked to only the zoo officials running the program. The clerk never talked to any keepers or their union representatives, who had warned the zoo of potential widespread fraud as early as January, 1990.

At issue is an ETP contract, approved in August, 1989, that awards the Zoological Society of San Diego and two subcontractors $3,700 for each animal keeper who completes a course consisting of 142 hours of classroom instruction and 332 hours of on-job exercises. Material covered in the course included record keeping, animal behavior, biology, feeding, animal physiology and keeper safety. The state-paid courses ended in November, but the final payment to the zoo has yet to be made.

The zoo justified its request for the retraining program by saying it was changing from traditional exhibits to “bioclimatic zones,” where several species of animals coexist. Unless re-educated in new animal care techniques, the zoo argued, its entire keeper force was “likely to be displaced and claiming unemployment insurance benefits.”

But a number of keepers who took the course have told The Times that the mandatory retraining was marginally helpful. One zoo employee, an electrician, was the only one to say the training was “excellent.” In general, the others said the course offered a few interesting points but took time away from their normal duties by occupying them with classroom work that alternated between the overly comprehensive to the boringly trite.

“For me, it was a total waste of time,” said Robert D. Brock, a 16-year veteran keeper with two college degrees who works in the zoo’s Reptile House. As an example, Brock said he was taught in one course not to put his hand in animal feces.

“For a brand new keeper, maybe it oriented him to the zoo a little bit. They slap-dashed this together real quick,” he said. “In one four-hour lesson, we would have the reproductive physiology of mammals, birds and everything else--a semester-load of stuff. The other one was (geared) for a mongoloid.”

Charles Henderson Jr., a 20-year veteran keeper now stationed in the Reptile House, said the retraining course was a “rehash” of what he had already learned on the job. “It was just reiterating the skills that I had. I mean, I’ve got 20 years. . . . “

Rick Schiller, a primate keeper since 1981, estimated that “at least 80% to 95% of the people who took the course thought it was a farce. We were told by the middle-of-the-line bosses that they were doing it to get the money. This was an ongoing joke with the zoo.”

Some keepers contacted by The Times were particularly critical of on-the-job exercises they said had nothing to do with animal care. Those included giving directions to zoo visitors, describing the “rules of the road” for driving zoo vehicles, writing their own job descriptions and counting the emergency telephones and fire extinguishers near their enclosures.

Another assignment, dubbed a “scavenger hunt,” asked keepers to take time out from their duties to solve hypothetical problems--such as cashing the $45 check to see the 50 Elvis impersonators.

Ledder said this week the Elvis assignment was an attempt at humor, and agreed that some of the earlier lessons in the program were too basic. But she said the zoo adjusted by making some of the later classroom and on-the-job training more difficult.

“I’d be the last person to tell you that this program was perfect,” Ledder said earlier this week. “As I said before, it was an ambitious effort. It was difficult. We purposely decided to put the curriculum on a basic level.”

Confidential surveys at the end of the course, Ledder added, showed that keepers were getting something of value from the retraining course. “They didn’t think it was Nobel Prize material, but they didn’t think it was the worst possible, either,” Ledder said.

ETP officials, although concerned about the allegations of fraud in the contract, said they weren’t worried about the keepers’ complaints about the course content.

“It’s not unusual, in the training course . . . for the trainee to think that this is all dumb,” said Peter DeMauro, the ETP’s general counsel. “Without passing judgment on this, that is not an uncommon allegation we get from some trainees, that ‘I’m too good for this, why am I doing this?’ ”

Ledder said the training program continues to evolve, and a scaled-down version has now started up at the zoo for another class of trainers. This course is fully funded by the zoo itself and has dropped the mandatory on-the-job exercises that are at the center of the current state inquiry.

Zoo officials have said their review of the course shows no wrongdoing by zoo supervisors and blame the allegations on disgruntled zoo keepers and disagreements with the union.