Supervisors to Study Separate Office Budgets

Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to explore establishing separate office budgets for themselves, setting the stage for a fight over how they would divide the millions of dollars they now spend on office furnishings, staff, travel and other items.

Board newcomer Gloria Molina won unanimous approval for a study of alternative ways of budgeting the five supervisors’ office expenses. She temporarily backed off from a proposal to allocate equal amounts to each supervisor after some of her colleagues objected.

The action followed a Times report that the board has no spending limits for each supervisor’s office and that the precise amount spent by each is not readily available. The supervisors’ total budget, which also pays for the board’s clerk, is $32.75 million this year.

Molina, a critic of county spending practices, said that “our present system doesn’t allow full accountability of (how we spend) tax dollars.”

Supervisor Deane Dana responded: “Again Gloria, you’ve been here a few months, and you’re trying to change the world.”

Dana and Supervisor Mike Antonovich said they would oppose any effort to allocate office funds equally among board members without consideration of the vast differences between supervisorial districts.

“If you represent an area of 180 square miles, your costs are going to be quite different than one who represents an area of 2,800 square miles,” said Antonovich, whose district is twice the size of Rhode Island. Antonovich also argued that some supervisors spend more because they have more unincorporated territory, for which they essentially function as the mayor and City Council.

“I’m sure that you, like I, never sign a blank check,” Molina responded. “We shouldn’t ask taxpayers to do so either.”

The board instructed the county’s chief administrative officer to recommend how much money should be allocated to the supervisors next year for office expenses and what kind of formulas could be used for distributing the money.