Overhaul of Public Works Agency Urged : Government: Firm recommends replacing paid board with an advisory panel and gives ways to reorganize and streamline the department.

A private consulting firm Wednesday recommended a sweeping overhaul of the city of Los Angeles Public Works Department, including replacing its full-time governing board with a part-time policy-setting commission similar to those advising other city departments.

The recommendation--included in a report by Capital Partnerships that was requested by a special City Council committee--came a year and a half after the council rebuffed Mayor Richard Riordan’s efforts to disband the Board of Public Works.

Riordan was trying to make good on a campaign promise to get rid of the board, a move he said would save more than $1 million annually.

But the City Council determined that the entire bureaucracy-bound department--not just its governing board--needed an overhaul. So the council established the Ad Hoc Committee to Restructure the Public Works Department and awarded a $208,000 contract to Capital Partnerships to find ways to reorganize and streamline the department that oversees a diverse collection of operations including street lighting, sewers, garbage collection, street maintenance and tree trimming.

The firm’s major recommendations include:

* Consolidating all department operations having to do with waste water into one interim organization, then seeking voter approval to transfer the organization to the Department of Water and Power.

* Transferring the street light programs to the city Department of Transportation.

* Merging the remaining six semiautonomous bureaus into a single department with four divisions--engineering and construction, financial management, street maintenance and solid waste management. The reconstituted department would be headed by a director.

* Replacing the five-member appointed board, whose members earn $77,172 annually, with an unpaid, seven-member commission. Its members would set policy but would not oversee the day-to-day operations of the department, as the current board does.

Councilman Richard Alarcon, who heads the ad hoc committee, praised the report for its thoroughness but said the committee would take no action until he, other council members, the mayor’s staff and others can review the report and meet with the consultant.

Noelia Rodriguez, Riordan’s press secretary, said the report “validates what the mayor has been saying all along--we need greater efficiency and accountability.”

“We see this as the beginning of consensus” about the future of the department, Rodriguez added, “and we are looking forward to building on that consensus.”