Council Spending Big Despite Budget Woes : Expenses: Luxury cars, expensive hotel rooms and gift plaques are costing tens of thousands of dollars of tax money.

Despite years of strained city budgets, the mayor and members of the City Council have used luxury cars at city expense, stayed in expensive hotel rooms when they travel to conferences, and handed out plaques and certificates costing tens of thousands of dollars of tax money.

The mayor and council exceeded their travel and entertainment budgets the past two fiscal years, and one councilman stayed several times in hotel rooms costing more than $200 a night. Altogether, the mayor and council have spent nearly $133,000 on travel and conference registration fees since mid-1988.

Mayor Ernie Kell and Councilmen Doug Drummond, Warren Harwood and Clarence Smith drive city-owned Buick Park Avenues, luxury cars that are the most expensive of some 800 cars in the city’s fleet. The mayor’s office spends more than $20,000 a year on plaques, certificates and photographs handed out to the public.

Such spending has occurred against a backdrop of budget troubles that have in recent months cut into a variety of municipal services and even raised the specter of city layoffs. City officials have cut back on hiring, library hours, tree trimming and recreation programs as they scramble to head off a possible $15-million deficit in the city’s $287-million General Fund by this summer.

“For a period of about four years . . . we have been living very close to our fiscal margins,” City Manager James C. Hankla observed at a budget meeting last month.

Yet last year, Drummond ordered a $26,704 Buick, probably the most expensive car ever bought for the city’s fleet, according to the fleet supervisor.

“I was the first with a ’91 (model),” said Drummond, who took office last July. “I hadn’t realized the price had jumped. I ordered what the others had ordered. If I’d realized it was that expensive, I wouldn’t have ordered it.”

As for why he asked for a Buick and not a cheaper make, such as the Ford Taurus cars driven by Councilmen Evan Anderson Braude and Jeffrey A. Kellogg, Drummond said he tried the Taurus and did not like it. “It was not a very satisfactory automobile in my opinion. I didn’t think it provided the performance or the comfort.”

He added that he did not consider the Park Avenue a luxury car. “To me, it’s kind of a mid-range car, often used as a rental car.”

Although part-time council members in Santa Monica and Pasadena must use their own cars, Drummond and others defended their need for city vehicles, arguing that they attend meetings outside Long Beach and put in full-time hours on their part-time, $18,500-a-year positions.

“We are out late at night, here, there and everywhere,” said Harwood, who compared council members to directors of a large corporation in deserving more than cheap compacts.

He said he chose his 1990 Park Avenue, costing $22,582, because “we have a Buick in our family. I know it’s reliable and dependable and safe . . . . If there’s some kind of natural disaster, that car I’ve got will get me through.”

Smith also has a 1990 Park Avenue. “I weigh 245 pounds,” he observed. “I’m overweight, I grant you. I’m 6-1. It’s easier for me to get in and out of a car that has some size to it.”

Citing the city’s budget shortages, Councilman Les Robbins last month handed in his $17,173 Mercury Sable, opting instead to take the $450-a-month car allowance given local elected officials who use their own autos.

“These are tough times,” Robbins said. “The City Council is going to have to look at some damn difficult (budget) decisions and I really think we have to have our house in order. I don’t think the average person out there can take our budget situation real seriously” when city leaders are driving around in Park Avenues, he continued.

Even the council’s car allowance is generous, compared with those given non-elected city employees. Department heads are given $350 a month and lower-ranking city workers receive less than that.

Other councilmen who take the car allowance are Thomas Clark and Wallace Edgerton. “The way you’re supposed to use city cars can be easily abused,” Edgerton said. “I just decided I didn’t want to put myself in that situation.”

City autos are to be used for city business. But as City Auditor Robert Fronke noted, “The definition of what is and what is not city business is an interpretation by and large made by each councilman himself.”

Certainly, council members use their city cars to different extents. Braude put an average of 1,490 miles a month on the 1987 Taurus he recently exchanged for a 1991 model--more monthly mileage than any of his colleagues accumulated. By contrast, full-time Mayor Kell drives his 1989 Park Avenue an average of 581 miles a month, less than anyone else.

The city manager must approve car requests by the mayor and council. The city absorbs all the operating costs of the car, including gasoline, maintenance and repairs.

How much council members travel and what they spend on air fare and hotels is also largely a matter of individual choice. While Fronke’s office and the city’s financial management office examine receipts for travel expenses, there are no spending limits.

The two most frequent fliers on the council are Edgerton and Clark, who have spent more on travel, hotel and conference registration fees than their colleagues. According to city records, Edgerton has spent $23,334 since mid-1988, primarily attending conferences on the West Coast. Clark spent $22,816 attending meetings and conferences on both coasts.

Edgerton’s travel vouchers show that during the past three years he has stayed in more expensive hotel rooms than anyone else on the council. In late 1989, he flew to Northern and Central California to learn what he could about earthquake safety in the wake of the devastating October, 1989, earthquake. On two consecutive nights his room cost $273.48 a night, including tax. The next two nights he stayed in a $244-a-night room. Altogether, the trip cost the city $1,783.

In July, 1989, Edgerton traveled to Monterey for a League of California Cities meeting, again spending $273 a night for three nights. And last May he spent one night in a $207 room on another trip to Oakland and the Carmel area for a telecommunications conference and earthquake follow-up.

Edgerton said that on some trips he could not obtain lower conference rates for rooms. He added that he was surprised that he spends more than his colleagues on travel.

“That kind of comes as a shock to me,” he said, claiming that in the past he usually spent less than most other council members. In recent years, he continued, “I probably haven’t watched it as carefully as I might, because my trips are usually (in California).” In light of Long Beach’s budget woes, he said, the council should “see if we can do less traveling and become more lean in the manner in which we travel.”

Clark, who has more modest tastes in hotel rooms, attributed his high travel bills to the fact that he belongs to the boards of several municipal organizations. “I do travel more because I tend to represent the city on various national, state and local (organizations).”

Although City Manager Hankla in February told all of his employees to stop attending out-of-town conferences and seminars to save money, Kell said he was not proposing any cuts in the combined travel and entertainment budget for his office and the council.

“A lot of education is obtained and interfacing with other elected officials,” Kell said of the conferences he and council members travel to in such cities as Washington, Boston, San Diego and Atlanta. “For a city this size, I think we’re going to stay involved in state and federal politics, and the best thing is to be there in person.”

In fiscal 1988-89, the mayor and council overspent their $65,000 travel and entertainment budget by nearly $6,000. In fiscal 1989-90, they again budgeted $65,000, but spent nearly $10,000 more. They trimmed the travel and entertainment budget to $60,000 for this fiscal year, but had already spent $41,000 in the first six months. With the account, they pay for sandwiches at council meetings and entertaining visiting delegations, as well as travel.

Kell said he and the council attempt to get reasonable accommodations. During a recent trip to the East, for example, Kell said he cut his hotel bill from $239 a night to $89 by re-registering when he learned that he qualified for a special low-rate package.

Yet expense records show that they have not always been budget-minded. For instance, when registering for a Houston conference last December, Braude chose a $133-a-night deluxe room at a local Hyatt Regency--the most expensive one listed among the 17 hotels available to conference-goers. Drummond attended the same conference but stayed in an $89-a-night room, according to his expense report. Braude said his staff probably made the arrangements, adding that he was not sure why he stayed in a more expensive room.

On a 1989 trip to Washington, Kell spent four nights in a $198 room, including tax. Last year, Harwood attended a conference in the Palm Springs area and stayed in a $191 room, including tax, for three nights.

Harwood said he picks hotels he has patronized before and that are hosting the conferences he attends. “I’m not intending to spend a whole lot of time going through tour books (looking for cheaper rates). I don’t have that kind of time.”

While councilmen attending conferences in Santa Barbara made the 120-mile drive up the coast, Kell flew his private plane there for a 1990 Independent Cities Assn. meeting, charging the city $314 for transportation.

“It would take too long (to drive),” Kell said of the Santa Barbara trip. “I wouldn’t have driven it.” He added that when he uses his plane, he charges the city the equivalent of a commercial airline ticket to his destination.

As for the amount of money he and the council spend on certificates, plaques and framed photographs presented to members of the public, Kell insisted that the expenditures are worthwhile. The awards promote Long Beach and recognize citizen efforts on behalf of the city, he said.

City vouchers show that $24,000 was spent in the last fiscal year on such public relations giveaways. As of March, more than $16,000 had been spent this fiscal year, including nearly $900 on plaques for those who worked on the mayor’s transportation task force. This year’s budget includes a $12,000 contract with a company just to engrave plaques and trophies and a $8,200 contract with another firm to frame and mount honorary certificates.

The money has come out of the General Fund, which pays for basic city services. However, Kell said he will propose that next year such items be paid for with hotel tax revenue set aside specifically for advertising and city promotion.

The council also has not shied away from buying new office furniture.

When former Councilwoman Jan Hall left office, her furniture was given to the city Health Department, and Drummond, her successor, spent about $3,300 replacing it. Robbins spent about $3,100 furnishing his office. His predecessor, Kell, took his furniture with him when he was elected full-time mayor. Edd Tuttle’s furniture was sold for salvage and Kellogg, his successor, spent about $4,000 replacing it--including $1,879, with tax, for a couch.

Kellogg said the couch he found in his office when he was elected in 1988 “was about 10 or 15 years old. It was bright orange and sloped in the middle.” Regarding the price of his new couch, he said, “That seemed to be the rate. We did go out and get a few bids.”

Of all the expense requests, one of the most novel was from an aide of Kell who was reimbursed $188 for purchasing two “urgently needed” shredders for Kell’s City Hall office and his district office.

“It was an economy model,” Kell said. “There are a lot of things going back and forth between constituents and City Hall that I don’t like to put in front of City Hall or (the district office) and have someone rummage through it.”

He added, however: “I’m not too sure they were urgently needed.”