POLITICIAN WATCH : Raising Eyebrows

If only the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors showed the same inventiveness in finding help for the homeless as they have displayed in finding help for themselves. Because when it comes to finding a little something extra to squeeze out of a strained county budget to enrich themselves, the board is one resourceful bunch.

They voted this week, with only Supervisor Gloria Molina dissenting, to approve a $392-a-month “professional development allowance” that effectively will increase their pay by 4%, to more than $103,500 a year. This allowance is designed to help pay for books, home computers and seminars that can help the supervisors and other eligible county officials--department heads and Superior Court judges--do their jobs better. But receipt of the money carries no requirement that officials show how the extra money was spent, or that it was even spent on professional development at all. So the supervisors are, in effect, giving themselves a 4% raise.

This comes when the board is cutting the budget of virtually every county department and, come September, no raises are proposed for most county workers. What a way to boost employee morale and demonstrate sensitivity to the overwhelmed taxpayer: putting another few hundred dollars in the pockets of top county officials.

Yet the poor in Los Angeles county still get by each month with general relief benefits of $312 a month. For the homeless, it seems, county supervisors who found another $392 a month for themselves can’t find any loopholes in the budget.