Pest-Fighting District Limits Staff Travel : Regulation: Concerns over spending prompt vector control trustees to restrict the number of employees who can attend out-of-town workshops.

They have a new fleet of Chevrolet S-10 trucks, sting-proof suits and cellular phones. And they travel in packs--up to 19 at a time--to attend conferences in Palm Springs, Monterey, Bakersfield, San Diego and Florida.

Whether studying the arcane behaviors of mosquitoes or preparing for the arrival of the Africanized honeybee, Orange County Vector Control District officials have spared little expense in their battle against pests.

In the past three years, the district has spent more than $100,000 on travel-related expenses for staff and district trustees; $6,000 of that was spent in April to send 19 board members and staffers to San Diego for the annual American Mosquito Control Assn. meeting.

The district paid another $350,000 to outfit a five-member “killer bee” squad with new trucks, spray-guns, cellular phones and protective gear.

At a time when local governments are struggling to make ends meet, the district’s spending moved vector control trustees last week to rethink their own policies and prompted one county supervisor to suggest a reorganization of the district.

Thursday, vector trustees approved new belt-tightening travel regulation that will limit the number of employees attending out-of-town workshops.

“I think the board was concerned that it didn’t look good for up to 10 people to go to one conference,” district General Manager Gilbert L. Challet said. “I got the feeling that it was getting excessive when we asked who wanted to go to one meeting and we had too many hands going up.”

Based on accounts of recent travel expenditures, Supervisor William G. Steiner said he wanted vector control to be brought under the direction of the county Health Care Agency so that “supervisors could have some control over these types of expenditures.”

“I have little basis for comparison, but where are they going?” Steiner said.

District officials said the travel and bee team are necessary expenses to carry on the local war against pests of all kinds, even though county government faces another lean financial year.

Nonetheless, the same officials have become concerned that the travel expenses could bring embarrassing disclosures that have recently tarred other local governments, such as the Santa Margarita Water District, whose administrators, among other things, indulged themselves with frequent trips and meals at taxpayers’ expense. Two top officials in the water district are facing criminal charges related to allegations that they improperly accepted gifts.

Controlled by a separate board of trustees representing each of the county’s 31 cities, the vector control district operates independently of the county Board of Supervisors and relies on annual fees from property owners to fund its $5-million operation.

During the past three years, district road trips have stopped in Bakersfield, Ventura, Visalia, Sacramento, San Mateo, Indianapolis and Fort Collins, Colo.

On other occasions, the destinations have also included Palm Springs; Ft. Myers, Fla.; Monterey; San Francisco, and San Diego. Often, the district is well represented. On a January, 1993, trip, for example, six trustees and nine staff members attended a four-day vector conference in Bakersfield.

Topics at the April conference in San Diego attended by 19 staff members, for example, included a discussion on whether mosquitoes are more likely to transmit disease when their bloodsucking bites are interrupted by the human swat.

Last month, Challet traveled to Taiwan and Singapore for discussions on vector issues, which included schooling on how deadly Dengue fever can be transmitted by mosquitoes in the humid climate there. Challet’s trip, however, was financed in part by a private foundation and was not billed to the district.

The new policy approved last week will limit future travel by trustees to no more than five board members for each annual state meeting on mosquito and vector control. The policy could save as much as $1,800 per trip, Challet said.

Trustee Barry J. Hammond, also an Irvine city councilman, said the board’s action evolved from increasing concern that some travel may have been unnecessary.

“I come from a city that has a zero travel policy,” Hammond said. “The travel at vector control seemed to be more than some cities authorize.”

At the same time, however, Hammond said some travel has been important for staff to keep pace with the regional pest-related menaces created by killer bees or the deadly hantavirus, a sickness linked to prolonged exposure to certain rodent droppings.

“We want to make sure we’re treating these problems effectively. We hope any limitation on conference travel will truly be for the better of the district,” Hammond said.

Vector control had been among the more obscure government operations in Orange County until last year, when in an unusual and angry protest, thousands of residents wrote letters opposing a 20-cent per month increase in district service charges. The fee was raised from $1.10 to $3.19 per year. This year, Challet said, the fee is expected to be decreased, but there was been no final decision by the district’s board.

Vector board president Grant McCombs and Challet said travel expenditures represent a fraction of the district’s overall budget and has allowed staff to be scientifically current on the most serious pest problems likely to affect Orange County residents.

“No doubt about it, our staff is the best or one of the best in knowing what’s going on with the hantavirus,” Challet said. “If we couldn’t afford to send these people to conferences to see what is happening in these areas, we wouldn’t be as effective.”

The $350,000 spent on setting up a killer bee team, Challet said, should pay off when local residents learn of the bees’ arrival in Orange County.

“As soon as they are detected in California, even if it’s in El Centro, we’ll start getting calls in Orange County,” Challet said. “The public is bound to get extremely excited, and they really shouldn’t.”

In preparation for the bees’ arrival, estimated to be within months, Challet said the district’s fully outfitted team is in training: controlling swarms of common European bees.

“We’ll know where the bees are before the public does,” he said.