L.A. Official Resigns Amid Accusations of Illegal Pay

A high-ranking official of the Los Angeles Department of General Services has resigned after accusations that he improperly authorized as much as $88,000 in overtime pay for himself over the last three years, sources said Monday.

The case of James D. Bisetti, who left city service last week, has also been referred to the Los Angeles Police Department’s bunco-forgery unit for a possible criminal investigation, the sources told The Times.

Bisetti made $86,839 a year in standard pay as chief management analyst for the General Services Department, which maintains city buildings and facilities. The 20-year city employee directed budgeting and finance for the $180-million-a-year department.

Bisetti could not be reached for comment. A woman who answered the door at his residence refused to discuss the case or pass a message to him. Bisetti’s former boss, General Services Department General Manager Randall Bacon, confirmed that Bisetti resigned Wednesday but would not describe the circumstances surrounding his departure. “It’s a personnel matter,” Bacon said. “The whole matter has not been finalized yet.”

Bisetti received $32,115 in overtime in 1990, another $36,952 in 1991 and $19,796 this year before he resigned, according to the city controller’s office.

“We are talking about the possible theft of tens of thousands of dollars of public funds,” said one city official familiar with the inquiry. “That was essentially the accusation, that this was completely unauthorized and improper.”

The revelation of the investigation comes just days after City Controller Rick Tuttle called on all city department heads to more closely scrutinize overtime payments, noting that more than one-fifth of city employees earn more than $5,000 in overtime a year.

Tuttle declined to comment on the Bisetti matter but he said he expects all city department heads to report on overtime payment procedures by the end of this month.

“We are looking at both wasted overtime and improperly charged overtime,” Tuttle said. “I think managers need to look at both issues very carefully.” Tuttle called for his review, he said, to help the city close a budget deficit that was projected Monday at $155 million.

Sources said Bisetti’s large overtime payments were first brought to the attention of city officials by a call to the Los Angeles Ethics Commission’s whistle-blower hot line, independent of Tuttle’s call for a general overtime review. The General Services Department investigated Bisetti’s overtime payments internally.

The review determined that Bisetti had failed to work the overtime for which he was paid and that he also violated city regulations by authorizing his own extra pay, sources said.

In 1988 and 1989, Bisetti received a total of just $1,259 in overtime pay, then jumped to a total of $88,863 in the last three years, according to the city controller’s office. The internal departmental investigation involved only the last three years of overtime pay, the sources said.

A Los Angeles Police Department official who asked not to be identified confirmed that the department’s bunco-forgery unit was asked last week to look into the matter.

The city also is investigating whether it can recover some of the unauthorized payments, a source said.

Bisetti joined the staff of the city administrative officer in 1972, working his way to senior management analyst before transferring four years ago to the General Services Department, city officials said.

Tuttle’s office called Thursday for a more comprehensive review of overtime payments in the city, noting that 6,700 of the city’s 32,000 employees each received more than $5,000 in overtime a year.

Tuttle said that much of the overtime pay might be unavoidable--including more than $20 million to police and firefighters for last spring’s riots--but that department heads should scrutinize all payments closely.

Times staff writer Renee Tawa contributed to this story.