Supervisors Order Audit of LACTC : Finances: Antonovich calls for the immediate appointment of an inspector general following Times’ reports of excessive spending.

Responding to a report of excessive spending and lax financial controls, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday asked the county auditor to audit the financial practices of the county Transportation Commission, and Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he would push for the immediate appointment of an inspector general to monitor spending.

The Times reported Tuesday that the staff of the transit agency spent at least $2.9 million on travel, meals, entertainment and automobile expenses in a recent 18-month period. And in an unusual action for a government agency, officials issued credit cards to more than a dozen staffers. The cards were canceled after auditors discovered that personal expenses, including restaurant meals, had been charged to taxpayers.

“If they were children, you would take down their pants and spank them,” County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn said Tuesday. He called the report “shocking” and said agency staffers “spend the money almost like drunken sailors--but sailors would not be this frivolous.”

At Antonovich’s urging, supervisors voted 4 to 0 to ask the county auditor to immediately begin a detailed examination of Transportation Commission expenditures, as well as expenses charged to the commission by its numerous consultants.

Supervisor Gloria Molina abstained, contending that such an audit should be conducted by the city’s elected controller or by the county grand jury, either of which would have more independence.

Mayor Tom Bradley has called for an independent audit of the Transportation Commission to be conducted by a panel of experts with no ties to the commission.

Both the Antonovich and Bradley proposals will be introduced at the Transportation Commission’s next meeting on March 25.

The commission is an 11-member body that includes the five county supervisors, the mayor, two mayoral appointees and three other local officials from around the county. The commission sets transportation policy for the region and oversees the new rapid transit system currently under construction.

Commission members have long contemplated establishing a post of inspector general, who would monitor agency finances and report directly to the commissioners. In the past, commissioners have complained of difficulty in getting information from the agency’s staff.

In December, the joint boards of the commission and the Southern California Rapid Transit District voted to establish such a post as part of the merger of the two transit agencies planned for 1993.

But Antonovich said Tuesday that the post should be established immediately. He said he will move for its creation at the next commission meeting.

Commission members have complained in recent days that the agency’s executive director, Neil Peterson, and other staff members have improperly implied that the commission supports the creation of a mass transit super-agency that would lack such key officers as inspector general and treasurer.

“This is a clear slap in the face to this commission, which is supposed to be in charge of policy,” commission member Gerry Hertzberg said last week. “Staff is going to have to realize that this is the policy-making body and (staff) is going to have to wait for us to make policy.”

Hertzberg made the complaint during a special board meeting after learning that Peterson had testified in Sacramento in favor of a merger bill that would make the inspector general and treasurer posts optional.

Other staff members, meanwhile, have written letters to contractors and others, asking them to support the bill and falsely implying that the LACTC board was fully behind the proposal, commission members said.

“It’s inappropriate. It’s not supposed to happen,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who also sits on the LACTC board.

Hertzberg, Alatorre and other commissioners complained last week that they had never seen the actual language of the bill, which would merge the two transit agencies into a new super-agency that would be called the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The bill, by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), ostensibly would implement a merger plan that the LACTC and RTD had reached jointly in a series of heated meetings last December. But members of both boards complain that the Katz bill, which already has sped through the Assembly, contains several major differences--and flaws.

Times staff writers Amy Pyle and Mark A. Stein contributed to this story.