County Administrator’s Power Raises Questions : Government: Critics say Richard Dixon has too much authority. He contends he’s just following board policy.

He has more authority to award contracts than Gov. Pete Wilson.

He can rearrange department budgets at will, something Mayor Tom Bradley cannot.

Although he is not elected, the public pays for his perquisites, such as a bulletproof car with a sheriff’s deputy as chauffeur, plus an open-ended expense account for himself and other top county officials that amounted to $117,000 last year.

Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon is not well known outside Los Angeles County’s bureaucracy, but he is one of the nation’s most powerful non-elected government officials. His decisions affect the lives of the county’s 8.8 million residents.

Dixon, 54, who receives about $200,000 a year in salary and benefits, is responsible for day-to-day management of the government for the nation’s most populous county--with a bigger budget and larger population than many states.

He drafted the $12-billion county budget. His recommendations guide the Board of Supervisors’ decisions on every county function, from operating public hospitals and jails to inspecting gas station pumps and supermarket scales.

Without a vote by the board, he has awarded millions of dollars in contracts--ranging from employment contracts for chauffeurs and speech writers for the supervisors to authorizing a $250,000 cloud-seeding program.

Dixon directs the county’s 85,000 county employees and oversees ceremonial functions, from the county Office of Protocol to a staff of scroll makers and photographers. He also directs a team of lobbyists in Los Angeles City Hall, Sacramento and Washington.

Although he prefers a low profile, Dixon, a spy novel buff with a college degree in zoology and chemistry, is fast losing his anonymity.

The newest supervisor, Gloria Molina, has made Dixon’s spending of tax dollars a focal point of her crusade to establish greater accountability in county government. She has scolded him for spending $3 million to redecorate his suite of offices--including installation of a security system that restricts public access--and awarding another $3 million in bonuses to top bureaucrats.

“He is much more powerful than any of us,” said Molina, who last month called for Dixon’s resignation. She accused him of attempting to hide from public scrutiny an increase in benefits for top officials. Dixon refused to step down, and Molina got no support from her colleagues to fire him.

In his fifth year as chief administrative officer, Dixon also has become the focus of attention because supervisors are considering placing before voters a proposal to turn his job into an elected position.

Dixon, a career civil servant who serves at the pleasure of the supervisors, said he is only carrying out board philosophy.

“You can describe my job as having all sorts of power and prestige, but when it comes right down to it, I’m just their messenger boy,” Dixon said. “I really have nothing they don’t give me. And a good deal of what they give me is to carry messages.”

Some observers of county government contend that the supervisors have delegated too much authority to Dixon.

“What we have here is the tail wagging the dog,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, senior associate at the Center for Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate School. “The process is upside down.”

“It’s contrary to a democratic form of government,” said Larry L. Berg, director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “The voters don’t hire this guy, the supervisors do. They should keep this guy on tap, not on top.”

Other county chief administrative officers contacted by The Times were surprised at the broad powers the Los Angeles County supervisors have granted a non-elected executive.

“I’d feel uncomfortable with that kind of authority,” said Ernie Schneider, chief administrative officer for Orange County. “That’s the kind of stuff that gets you in hot water.”

Harry Hufford, former Los Angeles County chief administrative officer who is director of community affairs for the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said he did not have such broad powers during his 10-year tenure in the 1970s and 1980s. “The supervisors should not concentrate the kind of authority they have in an appointee,” said Hufford. “I don’t think one appointed person has the capacity or vision to form judgments about the level of service needed from health services to law enforcement.” Although the county’s 38 departments are autonomous, Dixon wields clout over them because he not only recommends the budgets, but also whether the department heads should receive merit raises.

He also is the county official most supervisors turn to for advice.

“He controls all of the information,” Molina said. “All the departments report to him. Whatever I ask for from a department head gets sanitized through his office, which I find offensive.”

Dixon denied that he withholds information from supervisors and said he has tried to make sure that the board is aware of potentially embarrassing problems. He said he alerted the board privately before embarking on his office remodeling and before awarding the cloud-seeding contract last year.

His powers are so broad that even Supervisor Deane Dana was unaware that Dixon regularly awards dozens of “consultant” contracts that total millions of dollars--without a vote of the supervisors.

County records show that the supervisors--with Dana concurring--voted in 1988 to give the chief administrative officer authority to approve contracts for “financial, economic, accounting, engineering and administrative services.”

The official also has the power to modify department budgets, even after the supervisors have approved the county’s annual spending plan.

Most other large California counties--including San Diego, Orange, Ventura and San Francisco--do not give this broad authority to the chief administrative officer. Neither do large cities, such as Los Angeles.

Chief administrative officers at the city and many other counties must bring contracts over a certain dollar limit--usually $25,000--to the board for consideration. Many prefer to bring the smaller contracts to the board for a vote anyway, making the public aware of the award.

Dixon’s management style is to run the county like a private corporation, which he views as a model of efficiency.

He makes no apologies for advocating government salaries and perks that are competitive with the private sector. He says, in effect, go after and keep the best available managers. In the past two years, he proposed tax-subsidized health club memberships and a “professional development allowance” for county executives, but those proposals were scuttled.

Dixon controls a checking account that last year was used to pay $117,000 in expenses for himself, the supervisors and other county officials. Spending from that account included a $1,938 reception for Dana, $700 in catered lunches for supervisors, $300 for a home security improvement for Supervisor Ed Edelman, and $3,700 for Supervisor Mike Antonovich and an aide to travel to Spain to plan the county’s celebration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ landing.

Dixon, who began 33 years of county service as a court aide at $303 a month, was appointed chief administrative officer in 1987 after working as head of the office’s budget division and as county treasurer and tax collector.

A San Diego native and son of a Montgomery Ward store manager, Dixon graduated from Pomona College. He entered medical school at UCLA but dropped out after a year because he needed money to support a wife--his first of three--and a child.

Dixon is the picture of a mild-mannered, businesslike manager, but he is also known to be a demanding boss and an astute navigator through the county bureaucracy.

A sign in Dixon’s wood-paneled office reads: “To err is human, to forgive is not my policy.”

He lists “Work” on his resume as his primary interest. His chauffeured county car is equipped with a fax machine, and he has a county phone in his bathroom at home, ready to take a supervisor’s call at any time.

Dixon said his proudest accomplishment has been increasing opportunities for women, particularly on his budget staff where the proportion of women in professional positions has increased to 50% from 4%.

Most supervisors commend Dixon’s handling of county finances in tough economic times.

Dixon has advocated turning over many county services to private industry--an action he contends has saved the county millions of dollars but critics say has eroded public services.

Edelman said some board members rely on Dixon to look beyond parochial interests and to the needs of the entire county.

“Because we have five supervisors, each having equal power, each representing parts of the county, we defer a lot of administrative stuff for him to handle,” Edelman said.

Because the supervisors are political equals who usually see one another only at about half a dozen board meetings each month, Dixon acts as a go-between, providing the political glue that makes board policy stick.

“I have a responsibility to give them (the supervisors) my recommendations on essentially everything that comes before them,” he said. “Once they have made their decision, I have a responsibility to see that it is carried out.”

Dixon meets privately each week with all supervisors but Molina, who has refused to meet regularly with Dixon outside of board meetings.

Molina contends that Dixon’s private briefings are designed to shield county business from public scrutiny.

Dana said it is necessary for every supervisor to meet regularly with Dixon “so we don’t have to sit in the board room, like Molina, and ask all the ridiculous questions in the world. You have to be part of the action around here. You have to communicate.”

Mike Lewis, chief deputy to former Supervisor Pete Schabarum, said: “Supervisors are dependent on him to keep the board out of trouble.”

“We (supervisors) can’t possibly act as individual administrators,” said Dana. “This is just like a big corporation. . . . If you gave each of us a section to run, we would have a bankrupt company.”

But critics say the supervisors have delegated broad authority to Dixon to insulate themselves from unpopular actions. “It’s a comfortable way to make tough political decisions,” said Jeffe. “It’s low-key, out of the limelight.”

Dixon and his staff also decide what stands the county takes on legislation. He said he and his staff follow broad policy guidelines set by the board, such as supporting all legislation that would increase county revenues.

“Lobbying is a day-to-day operation” that does not require constant monitoring by the supervisors, Dana said. “He (Dixon) knows what to do.”

So far, Dixon, a registered Republican, has survived the transition from a conservative majority to a liberal-dominated board.

Peter Detwiler, consultant to the state Senate Committee on Local Government, recalled this axiom: “To succeed in Los Angeles County government, all you have to know is how to count to three and divide by five.”

Three is the number of board votes it takes to approve anything, including the hiring or firing of a chief administrative officer. Five is how the five supervisors often divide county funds equally among themselves.

Democratic state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), who is running for retiring Supervisor Kenneth Hahn’s seat, has said that if elected she will vote to fire Dixon. Two of Dixon’s strongest supporters, Antonovich and Dana, could face tough reelection battles this year.

In addition, Edelman has said he hopes to put a measure back on the ballot to create an elected county executive. Similar proposals were rejected in 1970, 1976 and 1978.

Dixon said he has no interest in running for elective office.

Battle of the Bureaucracy

Los Angeles County’s chief administrative officer, Richard B. Dixon, has come under fire from Gloria Molina, the newest county supervisor, over spending decisions.

Molina has complained that Dixon, who is appointed, has more power over county spending than the elected supervisors.

Dixon, a career civil servant, says: “I am nothing but a creature of the board. The power the CAO has is the power the board wants him to have.”

Some examples of their confrontations:

* May, 1991: Molina blasts Dixon for proposing during tough budget times a $392-a-month “professional development allowance” for the supervisors and other top officials. The supervisors, over Molina’s objections, approve the allowance but later cancel the increase after a public outcry.

* July, 1991: Molina complains that bureaucrats are running the county after the supervisors rubber-stamp the county’s $12-billion budget drafted by Dixon. Supervisors approve the thick document--bigger than the budgets of many states--after only two afternoons of debate.

* August, 1991: Molina discloses that the financially strapped county found room in the prior year’s budget to award $3 million in bonuses, and Dixon awarded payments of $2,000 to $2,500 each to five staff members for “outstanding performance” in coordinating the remodeling of the chief administrative office. A few days later, the supervisors suspend the awarding of bonuses.

* September, 1991: Dixon reports that he spent $3.4 million on office remodeling and an additional $2.7 million on computers and telephones for his staff. He defends the project by pointing out that it was financed with savings from his office budget.

* November, 1991: Molina complains that the county is spending $2.7 million a year on “transportation allowances” to county executives--whether or not they use their personal cars for county business. The program is being reassessed.

* January, 1992: Molina accuses Dixon of attempting to hide a proposed $3,000-a-year increase in benefits for supervisors and other top officials from public scrutiny and calls for the chief administrative officer’s resignation. Dixon refuses to step down, and Molina gets no support from her colleagues to fire him.