County Consultants’ Costs Come Under Fire : Government: Firm hired by the health department has been paid $25,000 in parking fees, $13,359 for leather furniture and $6,332 for a granite table. Legal Aid lawyer calls the expenses ‘outrageous.’

A private consulting firm hired under a no-bid contract by Los Angeles County to oversee a yet-to-be-funded public hospital construction program has been paid more than $1 million during the last year--including $25,000 in parking fees and $73,000 for furnishings.

Their bills, paid by the health department, include $13,359 for a leather furniture set and $6,332 for a granite conference table, records show.

Disclosure of the expenditures by the firm of Romigh, Roger & Rusk comes at a time when the county’s health care system is so strapped for funds that crowded public hospitals sometimes run short of basic supplies such as pillows. Administrators say they lack funds to replace aging equipment or hire more staff to add beds for the throngs of patients who daily jam their hospital emergency rooms.

Yolanda Vera, an attorney at the nonprofit Legal Aid Foundation, called the consultant’s expenses “outrageous” and indicative of a “pattern of misspending and bad management” at the health department.

Health officials were criticized a few weeks ago, she noted, for embarking on a disastrous fund-raising venture that was supposed to raise money for construction of new hospitals, but instead lost $726,019.

Fearing what he said may be “gross overpayments” to the firm of Romigh, Roger & Rusk, Supervisor Mike Antonovich requested an audit of the contract last week. Although they have not released their final report, the auditors have notified officials of a need for better accountability over the firm’s work and re-evaluation of its furniture purchases.

The auditors also faulted the firm for allowing staff members to charge the county for personal phone calls they made to places such as Japan.

Antonovich is scheduled to ask for a further investigation of the firm’s expenses at today’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors.

Defending the firm, owner Vicki Romigh said in an interview: “We knew we’d be under a microscope, so we got written authorization in advance” from top county health officials for all purchases.

Kathryn Barger, deputy to Antonovich, said: “The sign-offs by the (health) department are what we’re concerned about.”

Carl Williams, assistant director for health services who approved the bills, said “you have to keep these purchases, which individually may sound out of line, in perspective in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish here. This is one of the most creative, outstanding public-private partnerships we have ever launched. We needed to get it up and going.”

A year ago, the newly formed consulting firm of Romigh, Roger & Rusk was awarded a four-year, “personal services” contract--which does not require competitive bidding--to help county health officials prepare to undertake a $2.3-billion hospital rebuilding program. The firm’s job is to serve as a “a catalyst . . . to keep the county on schedule” in meeting funding and project deadlines, said Virginia Rusk.

Williams said the building program will make the delivery of health services more efficient, saving the county millions of dollars annually.

But funding prospects for this ambitious plan--which consists of 33 construction projects including two new public hospitals--have grown so dim in recent months that top county officials fear that most improvements will not materialize.

Although the fledgling firm, also known as RRR, had no experience at the time of its hiring, its three principal partners had worked for other companies that had helped the county draft its comprehensive health care master plan, adopted in 1990.

Under the contract, RRR has billed the county $1,081,930 of the $1.4 million allowable annual maximum. The contract provides for up to $852,000 a year in professional fees and, in an unusual move, it also offers annual allowances for expenses: $260,000 for office space and $155,000 for supplies and miscellaneous expenses. Most county contracts do not include such allowances, Barger said.

To ensure coordination with county officials, six to nine health department employees have been assigned to work out of RRR’s offices, and the company is allowed to spend up to $165,000 a year on furnishings for them.

Records show that RRR has billed the county $73,000 for furnishings that included five leather chairs costing between $1,500 and $2,822 apiece, a leather sofa costing $4,841, two snack bar stools for $400 apiece, a granite conference table for $6,332, and 11 custom-framed paintings for $4,718. Rusk said these items have all been placed in common areas of the office, such as the conference room or lobby.

Rusk said the furnishings are more modest than those in other county offices. “The treasury tax collector’s conference room makes ours look shabby,” she said.

She said the $6,332 granite conference table was less expensive than a $12,000 wooden table that was offered as an alternative by the interior decorator--whose fee was also paid by the county.

Asked whether, instead of buying new furniture, the firm considered looking for discarded, surplus office equipment stored at the county’s warehouse in City of Commerce, Romigh said: “I don’t recall ever having a conversation about county surplus equipment.”

In addition to paying for furniture, the county pays the rent--$16,000 a month--for RRR’s offices, which are located in an expensive downtown high-rise at 800 W. 6th St. The county also picks up the tab for parking in the building--which has ranged from $553 to $3,152 a month, depending upon the number of spaces reserved.

The consultants said they would have used a “lower-cost . . . and smaller-size” place, except that health officials insisted that they be close to the downtown Civic Center in quarters that were spacious enough to include as many as 15 health department employees.

As for their $175 hourly fee for professional services authorized under the county contract, the consultants pointed out that the comparable billing rate for professionals in “Big Six” consulting firms are in excess of $300 an hour. RRR also claims to have written off $64,000 in professional services because it turned out that the firm had exceeded the maximum fees allowable under the contract.

Two jobs that the consultants have overseen during the last year were selection of a site for a hospital to be built in the east San Gabriel Valley and selection of architectural and engineering firms for construction of several public hospitals. The selections were made in anticipation of money being found to launch the projects.

Williams said: “I’m afraid everybody is going to get hung up on who approved what furniture and they will lose sight of the real message that this is an outstanding effort in public-private partnership.”

However, Vera, at the Legal Aid Foundation, said: “Given the limited amount of funds that the health department claims to have, there ought to be a system to scrutinize all expenditures for attorney fees and private consultants.”

Times staff writer Hector Tobar contributed to this story.