A Flicker of Light in County Government

One of Harry L. Hufford’s first acts after taking over as Los Angeles County chief administrative officer was to unlock the security doors his predecessor had installed in the hall outside his office.

Open the doors. Let the light shine in on county government’s worst mess. Maybe the truth will save us.

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Truth is about all Hufford can offer now that he has taken over an impoverished county from his predecessor. Former CAO Richard B. Dixon retired after his bosses, the county supervisors, criticized him for spending too much on amenities, perks and benefits for himself, other top county officials and for the supervisors.

Hufford is a slender, sandy-haired, balding man of 61, who is well known for his modesty and avoidance of the spotlight. The modesty, along with a conversational style that limps along on “umms” and incomplete sentences, makes Hufford seem too self-effacing to be a boss.

But first impressions can be misleading. Hufford was CAO from 1974 to 1985 when he left to become an administrator for the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He was a tough administrator when he was CAO, and a skilled negotiator with Sacramento political powers who control state aid to the county.

The problems that confront him are much bigger than before. Expected reductions in state aid threaten the county with a budget deficit of up to $845 million. The county’s system of health care for the poor is impoverished. And its personnel are still shaken from last week’s incident in which a patient walked into a County-USC Medical Center clinic and shot three doctors. Two years before the shooting, a security consultant had warned county health officials of potential violence in the crowded and tense clinic. But the report was ignored.

Everything from hospital shootings to foothill flooding finds its way to the chief administrative officer’s desk. Technically, the five county supervisors are in charge of the more than 100 county departments and commissions. But in practice, the supes delegate much of their authority to the CAO.

Dixon greatly expanded the powerful office. He was a master of inside Hall of Administration politics who understood a fundamental bureaucratic rule: Information is power.

He was a careful, controlled man, frugal with every word. Reporters covering the county used to have useful, off-the-record chats with the CAO on Monday mornings. Hufford gave us free-flowing soliloquies, providing clues to what was happening. Dixon told us nothing. Soon, by mutual agreement, the sessions ended.

Dixon also muzzled department heads and other top bureaucrats who used to deal directly with individual supervisors. They had to go through Dixon. Soon, Dixon held all the cards. He was the only person who could tell the supervisors what was going on.

This didn’t make much difference in big policy items. Dixon shared the conservative philosophy of the 1980s Board of Supervisors: More money for the sheriff, less for health care for the poor. But on many unpublicized items, ranging from promotions to department reorganizations to perks, Dixon’s carefully written policy papers became law.

And, he installed the glass security doors outside his splendidly redecorated office suite. No more could reporters and other visitors drop in on his subordinates.

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After unlocking the doors, restoring free speech to the department heads and reinstating the sessions with reporters, Hufford went to work on the deficit crisis, coming up with an unexpectedly controversial plan.

He said be truthful. There’s no way Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature can balance the state budget at the end of the fiscal year, as has been done in the past. To do so would mean unbearable cuts in social services in a recession-stricken state. Instead, he said, balance the budget over five years, eliminating the state’s need to take $2.6 billion in aid from cities and counties this year. In five years, he said, “once the economic recovery is under way, revenues will exceed expenditures if associated with a tight cost control plan. This will bring the budget into balance.”

The supes approved his plan 4 to 1, with conservative Mike Antonovich dissenting. Reflecting a view most likely held by Wilson, Antonovich said the plan was deficit financing, rather than fiscal truth. “Deficit spending is an addiction,” he said.

Wednesday, Hufford gave the proposal to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. He did it in his unpretentious way, going down Grand Avenue to the Biltmore Hotel, where Brown was holding his economic summit, and handing it to one of the Speaker’s aides.

Getting it passed will be much more difficult than unlocking the security doors. But not long ago, people thought they would be locked forever and the light would never again shine on the dim reaches of county government.