NEWS ANALYSIS : Pension Reform Vote Signals New Divide on County Board : Politics: Split is emerging between old and new, rather than conservatives and liberals. First-term supervisors push open discussion, other reforms.

In the end, the County Board of Supervisors’ vote to postpone the toughest decisions on pension reforms had less to do with the conservative/liberal split that traditionally defines the board than it did with an emerging divide between the old and the new.

It was the two new kids on the block, first-term Supervisors Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who led the fight to reform the controversial retirement plan, which had been implemented in 1990 prior to their election.

And it was the three veteran supervisors--Ed Edelman, completing his fifth term, and Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana, both in their fourth terms--who pulled together a bipartisan coalition to block some of the most far-reaching reform measures.

“That’s the dynamic here,” Molina said. “It’s more than the old labels of conservative and liberal.”

The pension issue and the board’s vote illustrate a changing of the guard that is under way in county government, not only on the board but also within the senior management ranks.

When Edelman retires in December, three long-term incumbents will have left the board in just four years. Former Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon, the man responsible for implementing the pension rules, was forced out of office last year. In the wake of his departure, several other long-term department heads and managers have also left.

“I think we’re on the verge of some real change,” Burke said, adding that she believes the veteran supervisors were reluctant to change the pension rules because they were adopted on their watch.

As the changes shake out, they are making for some strange politics.

On Tuesday, the board was asked to eliminate some controversial pension benefits for new employees and scale them back for existing employees.

Advocates said the complete reform plan could have saved the county more than $30 million annually.

The two most liberal members of the board led the fight to tighten the purse strings, while the self-styled fiscal conservatives--Antonovich and Dana--fought to maintain most of a pension plan widely criticized as overly generous and self-serving. Edelman, traditionally labeled a liberal, shared their view that more limited reforms were fairer to workers and joined the majority.

In the end, the board voted to negotiate with county unions to end the benefits for new employees but chose not to halt the benefits immediately for new, non-union management employees.

The board also balked at scaling back benefits for the thousands of existing employees, though they agreed to consider next week a watered-down proposal to limit some growth in future benefits.

But the majority block formed by the three veterans may be short-lived. Already Molina is saying that if she cannot cannot get the rest of her reform package through at next week’s board session, she will wait for December, when Edelman’s successor is sworn into office.

And on Wednesday, the likely successor, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, weighed in on the controversy and committed himself to be the third vote to push through a comprehensive reform package.

“If elected, I will vote to rescind the pension spiking,” Yaroslavsky said in an interview.

“This is not a liberal, conservative issue,” Yaroslavsky said. “It’s the newcomers with less invested in the pension plan versus the others who may be in their last terms.

“The party is over, or at least it will be in December,” he added.

The pension rules, revealed by The Times two years ago, were adopted without a public vote of the supervisors or any study of their financial impact. They dramatically increased pensions by counting the value of fringe benefits, such as health insurance, as compensation for the purposes of calculating retirement pay.

Under the unusual pension rules, some senior executives and elected officials would earn more in retirement pay than they do on the job.

In the debate on the pension reforms Tuesday, Rebecca Taylor, representing three of the state’s largest taxpayer organizations, chided the board for not fully disclosing its initial decision to increase pensions of the most highly paid managers and elected officials. (Since then, similar but smaller benefits have been granted to most other county employees.)

“You’re acting as if it’s a club here,” said Taylor.

Taylor was expressing a persistent criticism that the supervisors tend to operate behind closed doors. Molina has lodged that complaint since she first ran for the office.

“When I got here I felt I had to bring (the county) out of the shadows,” Molina said. She said she is starting to do that by bringing the pension issue back before the board.