L.A. County Picks New Top Administrator

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday picked Sally R. Reed, chief executive of Santa Clara County, to take the reins of the county’s vast bureaucracy as chief administrative officer, filling a position that has been vacant since the February ouster of former CAO Richard B. Dixon.

Reed, 50, who has been the CAO of Santa Clara County for 12 years, was narrowly selected for the $174,000-a-year post after a six-month nationwide search. She is scheduled to begin work at the Hall of Administration on Oct. 18.

“She’s a fair and evenhanded person who is very knowledgeable about county government,” said board Chairman Ed Edelman after the five-hour executive session. “We felt she could bring those considerable skills to the county.”

The board interviewed Reed for the first and only time in a one-hour, closed-door session last week. Reed was the only candidate interviewed by the board after two other front-running contenders dropped out of the race for the post, widely viewed as one of the most powerful public administration jobs in the nation.

“It’s the greatest challenge in local government,” Reed said in an interview from San Jose moments after the announcement. Los Angeles County “is a county with a lot going for it, but not getting much credit for it. . . . I want to be a part of it.”

Reed is a career civil servant who served as deputy city manager of San Jose for two years and in various other city positions for the preceding seven years before joining Santa Clara County as CAO in 1981. Before joining San Jose, she worked for four years as an economist with the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington.

“My key strength is dealing with budget problems,” Reed said. “And I like turnaround situations,” she added, referring to the county’s troubled economic situation.

Before making their decision, board members narrowed the field of contenders to Reed and one unofficial candidate, acting CAO Harry Hufford.

Hufford, 61, never formally applied for the job but said he would accept the appointment if drafted. Hufford had been CAO from 1974 to 1985, when he joined the powerful downtown law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He returned to county service in February at the request of the board after the resignation of Dixon.

Dixon resigned after it became clear he no longer had the support of the board. His position eroded after a series of disclosures about questionable spending practices, including his behind-the-scenes approval of a 20% boost in pension benefits for senior county officials. Dixon also was criticized for conducting too much business behind closed doors and without clear authority from the board.

Two board members--Edelman and Deane Dana--made a last-minute push to keep Hufford on permanently but lacked the critical third vote to form a majority.

“I wanted the continuity of keeping Hufford. We are in a precarious time,” Dana said, referring to continuing budget problems and delicate labor negotiations. “There’s a lot of problems with which she has no familiarity.”

Still, all five supervisors agreed that Reed had all of the attributes necessary to manage the unwieldy county bureaucracy. “Absolutely,” said board member Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. “Everyone agreed on that.”

The job of Los Angeles CAO was described by the county grand jury in a report last year as “one of the most powerful public administrators in the nation.”

The county CAO exercises broad powers to manage a $13.5-billion budget and 84,000-employee work force--larger than the bureaucracies of most states. The CAO serves at the pleasure of the board.

Santa Clara, though the fourth largest county government in the state, is just a fraction of the size of Los Angeles. The county has an annual budget of $1.2 billion and a 15,000-member work force.

Reed, who is trained as an economist, joins the county in the midst of its greatest financial crisis ever.

The just-completed county budget was $1.6 billion short of what officials said was necessary to provide a reasonable level of services. Every department suffered substantial cuts and there could be layoffs of more than 10,000 workers as the county attempts to exact $215 million in wage and benefit concessions from the work force.

Those kinds of conditions will not be entirely new to Reed, a Republican who has built a reputation for fiscal conservatism.

In the three-page resume she submitted to the board, Reed said she took Santa Clara County from a dismal financial situation to one of secure footing. She said that when she took over as CAO in 1981 the county had a $70-million deficit, only $16,000 in reserves and questionable financial statements. Now, she said, the county has no deficit, a hefty $15-million reserve and strong financial statements.

In her letter to the board, Reed said she accomplished the financial restructuring in part by reducing the work force by 10%.

Despite her record, Reed maintained her $140,000-a-year position in Santa Clara with the minimum three-vote margin of the Board of Supervisors, according to published reports. With one of her supporters reportedly wavering, Reed’s future in Santa Clara was uncertain.

The Los Angeles selection process was a bit more certain. Reed nearly got the job by default.

The board had been expected to interview at least two other candidates: Merrett Stierheim, chief executive officer of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Jan Hart, the city manager of Dallas. But both “chose not to proceed” with the interview portion of the search process and asked to be taken out of contention in recent weeks, said Larry Monteilh, executive officer of the board.

Reed then was the only candidate left of the small group that was referred for consideration by the search committee appointed by the board. The committee considered a roster of 13 candidates identified by an executive recruiting firm.

Among those on the list that was whittled to a few finalists were four current county employees: Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Mary Jung, Senior Assistant Administrative Officer Gerald Roos, Assistant Administrative Officer Mike Henry and Treasurer-Tax Collector Sandra Davis.