City Is Slow to Reform Finances, Panel Says : Government: Executives gave Riordan and City Council recommendations and claim that not enough have been adopted. Mayor’s aide calls the assessment harsh.

A panel of corporate executives said Wednesday that Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and City Council members have not adopted enough of the panel’s recommended reforms of the city’s finances.

The group’s chairman said he would give the elected officials only a C-plus grade for their work.

The critiques come from the mayor’s Special Committee on Fiscal Administration, which earlier this year recommended turning more government services over to private companies and reducing payments to employee pension funds, among other changes.

The committee Wednesday praised Riordan and council members for some of their actions--beefing up the Police Department’s budget, plugging a $200-million deficit and not increasing taxes. But the group said it “regrets very much” that more has not been done.

Committee Chairman Michael E. Tennenbaum, senior managing partner at the Bears, Stearns & Co. stock brokerage, had harsher words for elected officials in an interview. “The mayor together with the City Council failed to do what they needed to do,” he said, adding that the city’s finances are run “worse than a kindergarten PTA.”

Bill Ouchi, recently appointed Riordan’s chief of staff, said he accepts the criticism but considers the C-plus grade harsh.

“I have been in the business of assigning grades much longer than Mr. Tennenbaum,” said Ouchi, a professor of business management at UCLA. “That is the grade of a rookie professor who is trying to show how tough he is. I think that’s what’s happening.”

Six months ago, the committee outlined dozens of steps officials should take to improve the city’s finances. Riordan incorporated many of those suggestions in his budget proposal. The council adopted some but rejected others when it approved the budget in May.

Most of the changes advocated by the committee face substantial opposi-tion from city employee unions and others. The recommendations include:

* Reducing expenditures or increasing revenue at three semi-independent city departments--water and power, harbor and airports. The DWP, in particular, can be made more efficient by reducing its staff dramatically.

The utility’s managers say they believe staff cuts are possible, but they warn that serious reductions could reduce the city’s ability to provide water and electric service.

* Cutting the amount the city pays into employee pension systems, to produce a $70-million annual savings.

Unions say the cuts will threaten pension benefits, something committee members deny.

* Boosting street resurfacing dramatically to prevent deterioration and to “catch up for years of neglect.” The city will spend $47 million in the current year, and elected officials said they could not afford the $70 million to $80 million the panel recommended.

* Forming a single unit to track and collect all the city’s bills as recommended in a 1991 audit.

Ouchi noted that Riordan has not given up on most of the committee’s recommendations. He said that changes in pension contributions cannot be accomplished until they are better explained to employees and retirees. He noted that consultants are studying ways to charge more of the city’s expenses to the Harbor Department, another committee recommendation. And he said initial plans for some private contracting are still being laid.

The recent appointment of Bill McCarley to head the DWP also indicates the mayor’s interest in streamlining that organization, Ouchi said. McCarley was Ouchi’s predecessor as chief of staff.