Suspension Upheld in Overtime Fraud Case : Investigation: Civil Service Commission says financial officer erred in approving tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay for superior.

Los Angeles city officials have held a subordinate partly to blame for allowing a high-ranking city official to receive nearly $100,000 in overtime payments for work he did not perform--a scandal that led to a citywide review of overtime payments last year.

The city Civil Service Commission has upheld a six-day suspension for Roger Huseby, who as top financial officer for the Department of General Services approved hundreds of hours of overtime for James D. Bisetti.

Bisetti, himself one of the department’s top managers, resigned late last year after revelations of the overpayments. He still faces a criminal investigation in connection with the matter.

A Civil Service hearing officer cited Huseby for a “complete and total abandonment of any reasonable and normal accountability standards.”

Hearing officer Richard C. Anthony recommended the suspension for Huseby in December. It was affirmed April 16 by the Civil Service Commission.

Anthony also concluded that an embarrassed department “sought out someone to blame for the debacle.” He called Huseby “a likely candidate” because “he was too timorous in his responses to Bisetti’s requests and far too gullible, slipshod and incautious for a top-level financial manager.”

Huseby contended that his signatures on nearly 50 overtime requests had been “window dressing” for actions taken by his superior, Bisetti. He said he believed that Bisetti had the authority to approve extra payments.

Bisetti was chief management analyst for the department, which maintains city buildings and facilities. He served as right-hand man to department head Randall C. Bacon and often acted in Bacon’s stead, the report said.

Memos filed in connection with the overtime case disclosed an ironic twist: Bisetti had been directing efforts to reign in excessive overtime payments within the department.

If anyone besides Bisetti deserves blame for the overpayments, it is Bacon, Huseby said.

“I think (Bacon) should have known,” Huseby said. “I think the buck stops with the top person in any organization. Mr. Bisetti reported directly to the general manager (Bacon) and I did not have any control over it.”

But Bacon said Wednesday that he had no way of knowing about the excessive pay. “The process was that (Bisetti) was supposed to submit requests for overtime to me and he never did that, not for one hour of overtime,” Bacon said. He had no reason to think Bisetti had worked extra hours, because he usually left the office at 4:30 p.m. to join a car pool, Bacon said.

Bacon has not been accused of wrongdoing. The hearing officer found that the department head had been left “out of the loop” because no one had told him about the requests for overtime.

Huseby should have notified Bacon or taken steps to investigate an inherently suspicious situation, the hearing examiner found. Over the course of 1 1/2 years, the financial official signed nearly 50 overtime vouchers for Bisetti. The documents routinely claimed 40 hours of extra work a week or more, although Huseby also signed five blank vouchers that were filled in later by Bisetti.

The Huseby-approved payments amounted to nearly half of the $95,000 improperly collected by Bisetti, who got the rest by forging documents, the examiner said.

The examiner was incredulous that a top financial official with 30 years of city service and oversight of a budget of $190 million did not question the payments.

“It is incomprehensible that (Huseby) would not become sufficiently uncomfortable with a boss who has had him sign five or more (blank) claim forms,” the examiner’s report said, “and who . . . had him sign a claim form for monumental amounts of overtime.”

Bisetti has declined to comment about the case. Bacon said his former top aide has maintained that he worked all of the 2,400 hours he claimed, usually at home.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s bunco-forgery section is investigating.