EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : 1990 Funds to Bolster Buildings in Limbo : Bond issue: The state is still trying to determine which government structures are most in need of strengthening. Of $300 million OKd in measure, only about $60 million has been appropriated.

Even as lawmakers propose new taxes and bond issues to repair Los Angeles’ earthquake damage, about $240 million that voters approved nearly four years ago to strengthen government buildings remains in bureaucratic limbo while the state struggles to determine which of thousands of structures are most in need of repair.

Originally expected to take two years, the process of doling out the money from Proposition 122, approved by voters in 1990, has taken far longer and is not complete.

At the start, a survey of 14,000 state buildings was hampered by a lack of response from building managers and the hassle of thinning the voluminous list, which included structures such as restrooms at state parks and warehouses used to store sand and salt dumped on Sierra highways during snowstorms.

Repeated turnover among the people in charge of the program has further slowed progress. An elaborate computer program written to rank the state’s buildings had to be redone when it produced illogical results.

Of the $300-million bond measure, about $60 million has been appropriated, though only about $5 million has been spent, according to the state Department of General Services.

Almost all of the $60 million has been set aside for pet projects of state lawmakers: a Sacramento office building for legislative employees, preliminary plans for new state buildings in Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s San Francisco district, and repairs on a Los Angeles museum that is favored by several prominent Democratic lawmakers.

State officials defend the time lag, saying they want to make sure they do the job right, if not quickly.

“I think we’ve taken as much time as we need on this,” said General Services Department spokesman Greg Sandin. “It’s a very involved process.”

State officials now say they expect to make a partial list of recommendations public by the end of the year.

Others say the job has taken too long.

In a strongly worded letter to Gov. Pete Wilson, Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) on Thursday urged the governor to make the expenditure of bond funds “one of your highest priorities.”

“There is no excuse for the failure to make the timely expenditure of these approved funds,” Torres said. “We simply cannot wait much longer for a detailed expenditure plan for bond funds.” Torres threatened legislative action unless the Administration acts swiftly.

Torres persuaded the Legislature to put the measure on the ballot in the wake of the devastating 1989 Loma Prieta quake. It was designed, in part, to raise money to repair several severely damaged state buildings in Oakland and San Francisco.

The ballot measure authorized the state architect to probe the seismic safety of all state buildings, excluding campuses of California State University and the University of California.

There was considerable damage on the Cal State Northridge campus, but no other state buildings were seriously damaged by the Northridge quake. Because the state is still putting together its list of buildings in need of retrofitting, the status of state buildings in the quake area is not known.

Originally, the process of finalizing the list was expected to be finished by the end of 1992.

L. Thomas Tobin, executive director of the state Seismic Safety Commission, said that panel’s members saw Proposition 122 as the first installment of a 10-year program to keep state and local government buildings standing during severe earthquakes.

“We thought that the money would be spent rather quickly,” Tobin said, “and we knew, from the vulnerability of government buildings, that we were priming the pump. It was our full expectation and intention that we would be writing the ‘Son of Prop. 122’ for the 1992 ballot.”

The commission is made up of 17 members, 15 appointed by the governor and two by the Legislature, and was established to advise Wilson and lawmakers on seismic safety issues.

Tobin was reluctant to blame anyone for what has happened since. But he said: “The slowness and delays have been a real frustration for us.”

A spokesman for state architect Harry C. Hallenbeck said the agency met numerous unforeseen snags that have slowed its progress.

“I think it could have been done in less time,” said Joel McRonald, chief of special programs in the architect’s office. “There were some miscues when it got started. There was a change in administrations.”

McRonald, the third official in the past three years to oversee the program, acknowledged that his office has received reports for only half the state’s 14,000 buildings. However, he insisted, “we believe we have gotten all the big buildings into our process.”

The original two-year time estimate was inaccurate, McRonald said. “Somebody just totally misread what was required.”

Scientific errors also contributed to the delay.

Lloyd Cluff, a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. geologist and member of the Seismic Safety Commission, said the mathematical model devised by the architect’s office to rank the buildings did not work. Buildings that clearly should have been ranked high were not, and structures that experts agreed were sound were near the top of the list, he said.

As a result, a new ranking system was devised and the process started anew.

“I guess we’re all to blame,” Cluff said. “You just can’t point your finger at the other guy . . . it’s within the earthquake community. We’re not focused enough to keep this moving. . . . I’m a businessman and I just get fed up with all this paperwork these guys have to go through.”

While the state architect has had difficulty ranking the state buildings, lawmakers have not. They have earmarked some of the money for projects favored by some of the Legislature’s most powerful members. Although each allocation has been justified as needed for earthquake safety, the projects have been funded without having to compete with other state buildings, as the voter-approved measure envisioned.

The largest chunk of money, about $41 million, has been set aside to restore 70,000-square-feet of exhibit space at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles that was closed in 1990 by seismic safety officials.

Suzanne Glad, a deputy director at the Exposition Park complex, said the museum was able to win the appropriation with the help of Sen. Teresa Hughes (D-Los Angeles) even though the process of prioritizing the state’s needs had not been finished.

“Everybody pretty much agreed we would have been in the top 10” buildings in need of seismic improvements, she said, noting that two aging structures at the museum were condemned.

The second-largest appropriation, $10 million, was designated to help convert a state office building across from the Capitol for use by the Legislature. Legislative staffers are using the building, but the money for retrofitting has never been spent.

The state Seismic Safety Commission criticized both proposals, contending that the allocation of quake safety funds was premature until the list was completed.

The commission said the best approach would be to spend small amounts at many buildings in order to improve safety in as many locations as possible. The legislative office building, the commission said, would cost too much for the benefit that would be derived.

As the Sacramento building conversion was debated in 1991, Sen. William Craven (R-Oceanside), who carried the proposal in the Senate, maintained that “there is not one scintilla of politics involved in it” and that the money would only be spent on seismic work.

A third appropriation of about $4 million was set aside for plans to replace a state building damaged in the San Francisco district of Speaker Brown in the 1989 temblor. Another portion of the funds is for a building in Oakland, named after Elihu Harris, a former assemblyman now serving as mayor. About $3 million has been set aside for the Seismic Safety Commission.

However, the Department of General Services on Friday estimated that of the $300-million bond, only $5 million has been spent since passage of Proposition 122, officially known as the Earthquake Safety and Public Buildings Rehabilitation Bond Act.

The reason only $5 million of the $60 million appropriated has been spent is because of the slow process of planning for retrofitting, which can include environmental reports and agreement on the retrofitting scheme.

The $300-million fund was split into two portions.

The biggest share, $250 million, was designated for state buildings, with the remaining $50 million aimed at buttressing local government buildings that provide essential police and fire services.

McRonald of the architect’s office said that the list of eligible local government structures has been whittled down to fewer than 200 buildings but has not been finalized.