Officials Urge Reforms in Phone Policies

An array of top Los Angeles officials, including Mayor Richard Riordan and County Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed, called for sweeping reforms Monday after revelations of extravagant cellular telephone use by thousands of city and county employees.

The proposed measures--which could include limits on who receives cellular phones and how often they can use them--came after The Times reported that Los Angeles taxpayers are spending more on cellular calls by government workers than anyplace else in the nation.

The newspaper also disclosed that, unlike most major U.S. cities, there is virtually no oversight of the 3,400 phones here, which are being widely distributed throughout the bureaucracy. In the last fiscal year, the city and county’s cellular telephone bill topped $3 million, dwarfing the amount spent by taxpayers in other cities across the nation.

In a joint letter to three key city officials, Riordan and City Controller Rick Tuttle said “cellular phone use within the city government has mushroomed and that a system of greater accountability needs to be developed.”

Saying the use of cellular phones must be weighed against “demands for scarce city resources,” Riordan and Tuttle requested that a task force review cellular phone usage and report back within 30 days.

In a separate letter to Riordan, who does not have a city-paid cellular phone, Tuttle urged the mayor to immediately order all city general managers to audit their departments to determine, among other things, whether the public has been paying for personal calls.

In the future, Tuttle said in an interview, “We’re going to be taking a good look at cellular phones.”

County Chief Administrative Officer Reed said controls on cellular phones must be established to assure public trust, particularly in light of the county’s severe budget problems.

“We clearly need to nail down who has them, where they are and make sure people get bills . . . so that they can apply the proper amount of self discipline,” Reed said.

Although she has one of the biggest jobs in local government, Reed averaged a relatively modest $110 a month on her main cellular phone and $41 a month on her backup. She said she uses the phones only “when it makes sense.”

The county already has procedures governing cellular phone use, Reed said. But, she added, “I just don’t think they’ve been followed.”

Numerous members of the Board of Supervisors and City Council pledged to address the cellular phone controversy at today’s meetings and take appropriate action.

Some of the would-be reformers found themselves in an uncomfortable position.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, for example, suggested reforms should not focus on who spends the most, but on what is the proper use of cellular phones. With an average monthly cellular phone bill of $645, Ridley-Thomas had the second-highest bill on the 15-member council and ranked among the top 10 users in all of local government.

When first asked Friday why his bills were so high, Ridley-Thomas replied: “Maybe I’m a lot more active than the other offices. On the other hand, maybe I spend too much time conversing on the phone, who knows?”

Nonetheless, Ridley-Thomas--whose cellular phone tab is 11 times more than his colleague Hal Bernson--said he would ask for “review and reform” in a motion today.

Other members of the council called not only for a reduction in the number of phones but for improvements in the entire system so that cellular users receive bills quickly and more easily reimburse the public for personal calls and flag potential fraudulent charges before they are paid.

“It makes your hair curl that it’s out of control,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, who has one of the lowest monthly averages on the council, $62, but whose chief of staff has one of the highest monthly tabs in city or county government. “People should have to justify every call that they make if they’re using public money to do it.”

“We’re asking ourselves the question of who, what, when and why for all our phones,” said Councilman Mike Hernandez, whose $333 monthly average bill ranked him fourth on the council. “I think it’s something we should be reviewing, including my own usage.”

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said she had experienced the billing problems firsthand.

She gets her cell phone bills four months after the fact, if at all, she said, too late to remember why she made calls and make reimbursements. Because of the lag time, Goldberg said, she has never reimbursed the city for cell phone usage; to make up for it, she said she occasionally pays for a tank of gas, parking or business meals rather than charge the city.

Goldberg said her own $144 monthly average, which places her ninth on the council, is “too high.” But the larger question, she said, is who really needs the phones in the first place.

“The bigger question is, ‘Why do you need them anyway?’ If they’re there, you’ll use them. It’s very hard not to.”

Both Goldberg and Laura Chick called for written guidelines on when and how to use city-paid phones.

Many at City Hall said that in addition to systemic reform to catch abuses, a cultural shift is needed in the approach to the relatively new, expensive technology.

“We don’t use the cell phone as a casual, pick-it-up-and-use-it kind of thing,” said Francine Oschin, chief legislative deputy to Councilman Bernson. “I was amazed that anybody would be as flippant as they have been, and to use this that casually. . . . I was really embarrassed at some of that.”

Meanwhile, at the County Hall of Administration, Supervisor Deane Dana said he expects the Board of Supervisors to discuss the issue at their meeting today.

“It definitely needs to be investigated,” said Dana, who had the lowest monthly average bill on the five-member board.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Mike Antonovich said in a statement that he believes “the overwhelming majority of cellular phone usage is both justified and warranted in the course of county employees doing their jobs.”

But Antonovich, whose $354 a month tab was the highest among the supervisors, said he would consider recommending a system used by the public defender’s office, which has the lowest cellular phone bills of any county department.

The public defender requires users to purchase their own phones, pay their own bills, and then seek reimbursement for business calls. The department’s average monthly phone bill: $33.

Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this report.