Supervisors Cancel Pay ‘Allowance’ but Stir Molina’s Anger : Budget: The board’s new member accuses colleagues of rushing to spend uncommitted funds on favorite programs.

In a heated session marked by an angry outburst from Supervisor Gloria Molina, Los Angeles County supervisors Monday canceled a controversial “professional development allowance” they had given themselves earlier this year.

The board took the action while speeding toward approval of an $11.9-billion budget.

In less than 3 1/2 hours, supervisors spent all $9.6 million in uncommitted budget funds, leaving behind a stunned Molina, a board newcomer who leveled her harshest attack yet on her colleagues.

“This is totally inappropriate,” Molina said.

She complained that supervisors rushed to approve their favorite spending programs without first assessing the county’s needs.

“You don’t just sit here and say whoever comes to the table first gets an allocation of funds,” Molina said. “That’s why most of the public makes fun of this board.”

She likened the supervisors’ budget deliberations to “going into a store and buying the first 10 things you see as compared to looking around, analyzing your budget, and saying, ‘What are the things I should buy?’ ”

Supervisor Ed Edelman, a fellow liberal, said, “I can understand Ms. Molina’s frustration. . . . Unfortunately, we just don’t have a lot of revenue that is discretionary to meet all the needs.”

Molina complained that her colleagues’ only interest was in spending the uncommitted funds, rather than scrutinizing the entire budget.

“We have an $11-billion budget and, so far, all we’ve discussed is $10 million,” she said.

“I think it’s inappropriate to just say we don’t have the funds and act as if that is the way life is, and it’s tough. . . . You’re making a mistake by taking the direction that we only have to fight over ($9.6 million). There is more in that budget. . . . We have to sit here and start asking those tough questions.”

Molina abstained as the rest of the board voted to split $5 million of the uncommitted funds evenly among the five supervisors for district projects. She also abstained when the board voted to allocate $1.2 million to prevent the threatened elimination of maintenance of equestrian and hiking trails and the closure of eight nature centers.

But as the figure grew smaller on a blackboard set up in the board chamber to keep track of how much money was left, Molina pressed to get the board to allocate money for some of her favorite programs. She won board approval for funds to increase patrols by sheriff’s deputies in her East Los Angeles district and to establish a counseling program for Latino families with children in danger of abuse or neglect.

Molina took delight in the board’s cancellation of the professional development allowance.

“I guess all those calls that I made to (Supervisor Mike) Antonovich’s office worked,” she quipped, referring to the public protest over the supervisor’s earlier approval of the $392-a-month allowance.

Antonovich, who voted for the stipend, proposed Tuesday that the supervisors cancel the allowance for themselves and 33 county department heads in light of proposed budget cuts. His motion was approved unanimously.

In May, Molina cast the lone vote against the allowance, characterizing it as a pay raise that would boost the supervisors’ salaries to $104,001 a year when the county budget provides no pay raise for workers whose contracts expire on Sept. 30.

The action on the allowances saved $92,000. The board did not cancel the allowance that went into effect July 1 for 238 Superior Court judges.

The ideological shift on the board created by Molina’s election earlier this year was reflected in the first day of budget deliberations. The new liberal majority approved increases in funding to reduce waits at welfare offices and at the AIDS clinic at County-USC Medical Center. Funding also was approved for establishing a jail clinic for treatment of mentally ill prisoners.

Deliberations continue today.