The Tasks Facing Outsider Reed as New County CAO

In a welcoming mood, the Los Angeles County supervisors cleared the agenda of anything controversial Tuesday for Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed’s first meeting.

She sat silently at the CAO’s small desk, below the supes’ elevated rostrum, watching her new bosses as if she were trying to figure the dynamics between these five imperious politicians.

Nothing in the supervisors’ behavior gave a hint of how they’ll act during the crises to come. There were no flare-ups between them. None asked Reed tough questions.

Reed, formerly Santa Clara County’s chief executive, is a friendly woman with a nice laugh and a pleasant voice. She’s small, with light brown hair that reaches almost to her shoulders.

Reed is Los Angeles County’s first woman CAO. But that is not the most important fact about her. What’s most significant is that she is an outsider, with no ties to Los Angeles County government, a tight bureaucracy that has long resisted change.

*

Although Reed has not made dramatic promises to change things, her 12-year record in Santa Clara County indicates she may try to push Los Angeles County in new directions.

For one thing, Los Angeles County’s budget is pretty much thrown together at the last minute and has been balanced in recent years by a series of one-time gimmicks. This year, after crying poverty for months, the county was embarrassed at one point to find itself with a surplus.

In Santa Clara County, Reed imposed strict discipline on the budget process--and on the department heads who spend the money. “She can squeeze a nickel so tight that the Indian will jump up on the buffalo,” Sheriff Charles Gillingham told Times reporter Fred Muir.

But the power of the chief administrative officer, who receives $174,000 a year, is limited. For it is the supervisors, not the CAO, who hire and fire department heads and have the final authority to discipline their spending.

Unfortunately for Reed, department heads have built special relationships with supervisors over the years.

When something comes up at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in South-Central Los Angeles, nobody bothers with the CAO. Hospital officials call Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who represents the area. They were trained that way by Burke’s predecessor, retired Supervisor Kenny Hahn, who was responsible for building the hospital.

The same holds true of Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s dealings with the big hospital in his district, Olive View Medical Center. Antonovich supervised its construction and maintains a hands-on contact with the place. The beaches and Marina del Rey are Supervisor Deane Dana’s preserve, and past CAOs haven’t interfered.

The five supes, in fact, hire the chief executive officer. Reed got the job on a 5-0 vote. She always must keep in mind that she needs at least three votes to get anything done--and to keep her job.

*

Reed has many employees reporting directly to her. But she can’t count on all of them if she gets into a beef with the supes or other powerful bureaucrats.

That’s because the county is a labyrinth of old friends and complex alliances.

Former Chief Administrative Officer Richard Dixon was a master of these Kremlin-like politics, building a network of allies so strong that it still exists more than a year after Dixon’s forced departure. He quit under fire for arranging perks and a big pension increase for himself and other top officials.

Reed’s immediate predecessor, Harry L. Hufford, learned about the strength of the network when he tried to reform things during his recent brief term as interim CAO.

But Reed has a lot going for her.

As an outsider, she is not tied down by old loyalties. Rather, Reed is on lookout for people who will be loyal to her, and willing to break away from old ways of doing things.

Most important, it will be difficult for opponents to try to block her attempts to control the county budget. The Southland’s persistent recession, plus the continued decline in state aid, has brought the county to a state of perpetual poverty.

The changes that Reed represents--tight budgeting and efficiency--are exactly what the county needs in these impoverished times.