Up to $4 Million a Year in Traffic Citations Missing : Law enforcement: An audit finds that 10% of tickets traced are unaccounted for. The controller says the money may have been stolen and calls for tighter controls.

Controls over the handling of traffic tickets issued by the Los Angeles Police Department are so lax that up to $4 million a year may be unaccounted for. Some of the money may have been stolen and tickets may have been fixed, City Controller Rick Tuttle said Monday.

In addition, a sharp drop in the number of citations issued, changes in the state’s funding formula and increases in court costs have “resulted in a near total loss of (traffic citation) revenue to the city,” Tuttle said.

In a letter to Aviva K. Bobb, presiding judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, John Ferraro, president of the City Council, and Ed Edelman, chairman of the County Board of Supervisors--which oversees the Municipal Court system--Tuttle called for “immediate initiative actions” in this era of cost-cutting.

Tim Lynch, a deputy controller, said there is no clear indication of where the accountability lies.

“We’re saying that something is seriously wrong with the system, and there should be a way of determining where the problem is,” Lynch said. “That’s why we sent the letter, to address the issue.”

In the audit report, Tuttle’s office said only that “in our opinion, the LAPD does not have adequate controls to ensure that all traffic citations . . . are properly processed and accounted for by the court. This is a particular problem because the court also does not have control procedures to account for citations transmitted by agencies. In addition, the LAPD inventory controls over citation books were weak.”

After hearing of the Tuttle’s letter and report, Judge Bobb expressed confidence in the court’s accountability systems and said she had doubts that any tickets were fixed. She said she would make the court’s audit staff available to review the process.

Ferraro and Edelman were not immediately available for comment. Police Chief Willie L. Williams’ office said he had not had a chance to read the letter or audit report.

Jim Armstrong, director of auditing in the controller’s office, said his office recently completed the audit of 80 LAPD traffic citations picked at random from the about 1.2 million issued by the department from 1990 to 1992.

Of the 80, eight--or 10%--could not be accounted for, he said. That is to say, of the 80 tickets for which there were carbon copies on officers’ citation pads, eight did not show up in the Municipal Court accounting system.

Tickets average about $100 apiece, Armstrong said. Assuming the sample is an accurate depiction of the overall problem, 10% of the about 400,000 tickets issued annually--or about $4 million worth--may be unaccounted for, he said.

It would be relatively easy for someone in the system to intercept checks sent in for unaccounted-for tickets and cash them, Armstrong said.

“They might try it,” he said. “Then, bingo, find out it works and try it again. That’s a lot of money. It could happen.”

In his letter, Tuttle did not specify what might have happened to the money, saying only that he was concerned that “weaknesses” in the accountability system “will lead to the associated loss or misappropriation of revenue.”

However, in a statement issued by his office, Tuttle speculated that weaknesses “could allow an activity for which this city has never been known--ticket fixing.”

Tuttle did not elaborate, but Lynch said the concerns over possible ticket fixing stem from the lack of accountability and the fact that “there are examples in other cities where someone--court officers or police officers--have fixed tickets.”

Turning to the issue of the drastically declining revenue from traffic citations, Tuttle’s office released figures showing that the city collected $19,343,698 from traffic fines in 1988-89, but only $6,151,092 in 1991-92.

The decline, the controller said, is the result of three factors: a reduction in the number of tickets issued, increased court costs and a change in the formula under which ticket revenue is shared by the state, county and city.

Tuttle said police commanders gave three reasons why traffic tickets have declined:

* An increase in traffic-accident calls handled by traffic officers, “which means that officers are spending more time writing traffic reports” and less handing out tickets.

* Traffic officers have been assigned to work on narcotics and gang-related problems.

* Traffic officers have worked less overtime because of budget-imposed limitations.