Supervisors Vote to Hike Own Benefits : Government: Increase matches that of other county officials. Molina dissents and urges administrative officer to resign.

Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday approved an increase in benefits for themselves and other top officials during a tumultuous session in which Supervisor Gloria Molina called for the resignation of the county’s chief administrative officer.

“People like us that already receive $100,000 should not be entitled to a fringe benefit increase,” Molina said in casting the lone vote against a $3,000-a-year increase in benefits for the supervisors. The raise was approved 4 to 1.

Molina accused Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon of attempting to hide the increase, which Dixon and other top officials also will receive, from public scrutiny.

Dixon said that he stated in a report to the supervisors that non-union workers would receive an increase in benefits similar to the one proposed for union workers--although he did not mention the supervisors or other top officials by job title or name.

Effective today, supervisors receive a $3,000 benefits increase, bringing the figure to $19,000 a year to pay for child care or dental and health insurance or to be spent any other way. The supervisors receive the benefits in addition to salaries of $99,297 a year.

Other top officials also will see their benefits increase by 3%, to the equivalent of 19% of their salaries.

Cost of the benefits increase for non-union workers is $4 million, and cost of the increase for union workers is $25 million.

Contending that this “masked salary increase for county bureaucrats” was the latest in a series of expenditures authorized by Dixon without her consent, Molina called on Dixon to quit.

Dixon, who serves at the pleasure of the supervisors, refused to step down, and there were not the three votes necessary to fire him.

“I’ve had enough,” Molina fumed. She contended that Dixon hid the increased benefits for the supervisors and other top officials in a contract for union workers. The contract grew out of a strike staged by county workers last November.

“If in fact we’re going to give ourselves a salary increase, let the public know,” Molina said. “Do not hide it.”

“I for one am at a loss to understand what the secrecy is here,” said Supervisor Ed Edelman, contending that he was aware of the increase.

Molina’s board colleagues said they are entitled to receive the increase because they, like other county employees, face increased health costs. “Why should we be singled out?” Edelman asked.

Other supervisors told Molina that she would be better informed if she would meet privately with Dixon, as each of the other supervisors does before board meetings.

Molina said she believes in meeting with Dixon “in the board room with the public watching.”

At a press conference before the supervisors’ meeting, Molina called for Dixon to resign, contending that he has authorized frivolous expenditures, including spending millions of dollars to redecorate his office, pay bonuses and “travel allowances” to top bureaucrats and finance management retreats to luxury resorts.

She also accused Dixon of resisting her efforts to provide greater detail on the $12-billion county budget.

“In all my years as an elected official,” Molina said, “I have never seen such a blatant disregard for authority and attempt to deceive the policy-makers and the public. This board has had a high tolerance for repeated budgetary sleights of hand from the CAO.”

The 54-year-old Dixon, a career civil servant who was appointed to his $169,000-a-year job in 1987, responded, “It is not my intent to resign. I believe I have served the board well.”

Molina, elected to the board about a year ago, has repeatedly complained that the supervisors have delegated too much power to Dixon.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn called Dixon “the finest chief administrative officer in America.” And Supervisor Deane Dana said, “The reason the county is in better financial shape than other governments is because we have a good CAO.”

“I think she’s just trying to grab a headline,” Supervisor Mike Antonovich said of Molina.