United Way of L.A. to Cut Staff, Refocus Efforts : Charities: Restructuring is in response to five-year decline in fund raising. Agency hopes to broaden appeal to small and medium-size companies.

The United Way of Greater Los Angeles has announced staff cuts and a major restructuring plan in a bid to reverse a dramatic five-year fund-raising dive.

The nonprofit giant--the fifth-largest United Way in the nation--will trim 40 positions, mainly in research and planning areas, from its 200-member work force.

Since 1990, the agency that provides funds to hundreds of nonprofit groups and charities, from the YMCA to the Girl Scouts, has slashed grants 41%.

An unspecified number of additional workers will be reassigned to new jobs within the organization, officials said, and the corporate headquarters will move to smaller offices in Downtown Los Angeles.

President Joseph V. Haggerty, a former Phoenix United Way chief who was hired in May to turn around the charity’s sagging fortunes, said the organization will redouble efforts to reach small and medium-size companies, where most recent job growth has taken place, and emphasize its local roots.

“Because our area is so terribly big, it’s a challenge to reach these medium-sized companies,” Haggerty, 46, said. “There are literally thousands of companies in L.A. County, but we don’t have a relationship with many of them.”

The Los Angeles United Way, which depends heavily on gifts from large companies and their employees, says it has been hit hard by corporate downsizing, particularly at banks and aerospace manufacturers, over the past five years.

In that period, the Los Angeles United Way’s grants to social service agencies have plummeted from $76.4 million in 1990-91 to a projected $44.9 million in 1995-96. The most recent campaign, ended this spring, raised $57.2 million, a 3% drop from the previous year.

As a result, dozens of nonprofit groups--from child care centers to senior citizen housing services--have trimmed staff, cut programs or sought money from individual donors or foundations.

“The loss of [grant] money is hurting people who need help,” Haggerty said. Agencies “want us to focus on fund raising.”

Haggerty said he agreed with critics who charge that the charity’s overhead costs are too high. In 1994, the Los Angeles United Way recorded revenues of $60.7 million. More than $13.4 million--or about 22 cents of every dollar--went toward such expenses as staff salaries and promotions.

Robert Bothwell, executive director of the charity watchdog group National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, said that a survey of United Ways nationwide indicated an average expense ratio of about 15 cents on the dollar.

The Los Angeles organization is also taking pains to distance itself from United Way of America, whose former president, William Aramony, was convicted this year of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

The local group has distributed fact sheets headlined “WE ARE NOT United Way of America” and describing the national organization as “a trade association for the more than 2,000 local United Ways.”