Grand Jury Criticizes Pension Benefits : Retirement: Report attacks supervisors for approving perks. Authors complain about official interference.

The Los Angeles County grand jury, racing the clock on the final day of its term, blasted the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday for implementing costly pension perks that represent “the height of fiscal irresponsibility.”

But even as they released the document, its co-authors said county officials threw up unprecedented obstacles to the report’s publication, including an eleventh-hour court order to withhold information.

“I’m so disillusioned with the process I can hardly speak,” said Robert J. Sutton, co-author of the report, which he said was “cruelly edited” by county lawyers and further slashed Tuesday morning by Superior Court Judge Cecil Mills. “I’m beginning to wonder if we really are an independent body and a watchdog,” he said.

Two other dissident jurors on the 19-member panel, who provided copies of the report to The Times, agreed with Sutton and said they felt county officials who were supposed to aid them had dragged their feet.

“Everyone (in county government) had a conflict of interest” because they stand to benefit from the pension rules that will cost taxpayers $265 million, said Nancy Ellis Schoettler, one of the disgruntled grand jury members.

The rules allow fringe benefits to be counted with salaries in calculating retirement pay. Pensions for some employees jumped by 19% to more than $150,000. The rules were adopted without a public vote of the supervisors or study of the financial impact.

“I don’t think they thought we had the tenacity to keep going” through four rewrites, Sutton said. “I felt there was nothing we could do to satisfy” the panel’s legal adviser.

The lawyer, Robert Cohen, could not be reached for comment late Tuesday, but said earlier that the report was being “squelched by the court.”

Without significant editing, one county attorney said, the report could have been libelous.

Grand jury foreman George Ackerman said he did not share the dissidents’ views. He defended Judge Mills’ actions, saying “whatever he excised, he was required to by law. He’s a brilliant jurist.” Mills, who left on vacation at midday, could not be reached.

Although Ackerman distanced himself from other members of the grand jury on criticizing the process, he embraced the findings of his colleagues.

“The entire grand jury abhors the arrogance of this added pension cost,” Ackerman said in an interview. “It is important that this added cost not be passed on to the overburdened taxpayers.”

The grand jury reported that although it was not able to conduct an in-depth study, “certain basic facts are so irrefutable” that they called for the immediate cancellation of the pension rules.

Supervisor Gloria Molina on Tuesday welcomed the report.

“We’re glad to see that the grand jury report points out the irresponsibility of this board in approving these pension benefits,” said Molina, who was not on the board when the benefits changes were enacted.

Meanwhile, momentum was building behind Molina’s call for the rules to be rescinded.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, whose annual retirement pay would be $26,000 higher than his current $99,000 salary under the pension rules, said on Tuesday that he is considering going along with Molina’s call to rescind the rules.

“I considering it very seriously,” Hahn said. “I was always uncomfortable with (the rule changes).”

Supervisor Deane Dana, who is in a tough reelection race in which his challenger has made the pension rules an issue, is under increasing pressure to vote against the rules. Dana, who is out of town on vacation and could not be reached on Tuesday, had said earlier that he would vote to repeal some of the pension changes.

The grand jury began its investigation into the pension rules after The Times reported that they were adopted without a public vote and without any study of the financial impact. A subsequent county actuarial study showed the cost to be at least $265 million.

Since then, the state Legislature voted unanimously to eliminate the legal underpinnings of the county’s action. Gov. Pete Wilson signed that measure into law.

Two of the state’s largest taxpayer groups have filed a lawsuit demanding that the Board of Supervisors rescind the pension rules.

County Counsel DeWitt Clinton has defended the rule changes as legal and necessary. He has also told supervisors that it is impossible to take away the benefits once they are granted. He did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking comment on the grand jury’s findings.

Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon, who led the effort for the unusual pension rules changes, also did not return calls.