BUREAUCRACY WATCH : Off-Track Attitude

Rail mass transit has not been an easy sell in the car culture of Southern California. That has begun to change with the success of the Long Beach-to-Los Angeles Blue Line. But the willingness to pay for rail is undermined when there are suggestions that someone is playing fast and loose with the public’s money.

That’s why the Los Angeles Transportation Commission had better get a handle, and fast, on questions being raised about the financial propriety of spending on projects. The commission’s auditors have questioned $2.7 million in overhead expenses incurred by the top contractor of Los Angeles’ rail transit network, Tutor-Saliba Corp. The commission already has disallowed the contractor’s expenses for football and horse racing tickets, a payment to the IRS and even a portion of the company president’s salary of nearly $925,000.

What’s worrisome is that the LACTC, while challenging the spending, seems to have a rather blase reaction: “This hasn’t been keeping me awake nights,” said Edward McSpedon, president of the LACTC’s Rail Construction Corp., which is overseeing construction of the system. “ . . . In terms of how much impact it has on us, our costs of doing business and on the taxpayers, it’s not a lot of money.”

Tell that to the taxpayer. The LACTC had better ride herd on expenses, both its own and the expenses of contractors. As state voters showed this week when they rejected an important rail proposition, beleaguered taxpayers don’t need many excuses to turn away from supporting expensive public works projects.