Dana Spent $9 a Vote to Win Board Contest : Elections: The supervisor’s winning campaign over Gordana Swanson cost more than $2.5 million. Their combined expenditures of $3.1 million is a record.

Supervisor Deane Dana spent more than $2.5 million on his reelection in the most costly supervisorial race in Los Angeles County history, according to the final campaign finance reports filed with the county.

Dana spent nearly $9 for every vote he garnered and outspent his competitor, Rolling Hills Mayor Gordana Swanson, more than 4 to 1 in a vitriolic slugfest of a campaign that was marred by negative and inaccurate ads.

Combined, the two candidates spent $3.1 million campaigning for a job that pays $99,000 a year. The previous campaign spending record for a supervisorial race was $2.8 million, spent in the 1988 face-off between incumbent Mike Antonovich and former Supervisor Baxter Ward.

In the other supervisorial election held in November, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke spent $1.5 million in her narrow victory over state Sen. Diane Watson, who spent $1.3 million.

All four campaign operations went heavily into debt.

Dana’s campaign is $298,000 in debt, about $170,000 of it owed to his campaign consultant, Harvey Englander. The rest is in loans from businesses and other politicians--including Sheriff Sherman Block, who lent Dana $15,000 in the closing days of the campaign.

Dana also borrowed $25,000 from transportation contractor Tutor-Saliba Corp. in the closing days of the campaign.

Tutor had earlier contributed $28,000 to Dana’s campaign in addition to the loan. As reported in The Times, Dana’s aides, while substituting for Dana on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, voted 29 times in 1991 and 1992 to approve more than$45 million in contract hikes for Tutor. The district attorney is reviewing those votes to determine whether they violated state conflict-of-interest laws.

Swanson and her family loaned her underdog campaign $321,000, accounting for more than half the $597,000 she spent on the race.

Burke’s campaign ended up $252,000 in debt, including $166,000 in unpaid bills. Watson finished the campaign $151,000 in the red, including $68,000 in loans and $83,000 in unpaid bills.

Dana funded the bulk of his aggressive campaign with thousands of dollars apiece from scores of county contractors, unions, real estate developers and others with business pending before the Board of Supervisors.

American Golf, which operates county courses, gave $15,000 to the campaign. Developer Alexander Haagen kicked in $15,500 and the county’s firefighters union donated $16,000.

Swanson raised most of her money from family and friends in the Palos Verdes Peninsula area and from Malibu, where residents still harbor ill feelings for Dana, who championed a controversial sewer system. Swanson, formerly a member of the Southern California Rapid Transit District board, also raised thousands of dollars from transportation unions.

Burke was heavily financed by the legal community, including her former law firm, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue. She also received substantial contributions from other politicians, including $22,000 from former Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and a loan of $18,000 from Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden. On Friday, Burke endorsed Holden in his race for mayor of Los Angeles.

Watson, who had contested the results of the November election in which she lost by fewer than 3,000 votes, received large contributions from organized labor, colleagues in Sacramento and businesses with interests in the Legislature. Watson received $73,000 from Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union, $35,000 from Firefighters Union Local 1014, $7,000 from the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Assn. and $3,000 from state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti.

Antonovich, who was also up for reelection last year, spent $1.5 million to defeat five minor candidates in the June primary election.