Council Joins Call for Phone Reforms

Stung by a report that Los Angeles taxpayers are ponying up more for cellular phone calls by government workers than their counterparts anywhere in the nation, the City Council moved Tuesday to crack down on their use.

Four council members, some of them chagrined by their own high cellular phone bills, urged an accounting of who has cellular phones and the creation of guidelines governing their use. One council member, Laura Chick, took the cause a step further, calling for an investigation of abuse of long-distance privileges and calling cards.

The council’s actions came after disclosures in The Times that the 3,400 cellular phones belonging to the city and the county racked up about $3 million in charges in the last fiscal year with little oversight of the widely distributed phones. Mayor Richard Riordan and county Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed called for reforms Monday, with Riordan ordering a task force to report to him within 30 days with recommendations on how to provide greater accountability of cellular phone use and contain costs.

“It’s almost as though somebody thinks that this is play money,” said Chick, whose monthly telephone bills from June through November last year averaged $292, sixth-highest cost on the 15-member council. “Phones, long-distance calls, it doesn’t translate into coins and dollars [in people’s minds]. With the system the way it is, it’s easy for someone to think there’s no cost attached.”

Also introducing motions were Joel Wachs, chairman of the Government Efficiency Committee; Mark Ridley-Thomas, who heads the Information Technology and General Services Committee, and Richard Alarcon. Unlike Chick, they offered proposals focusing exclusively on cellular phones, calling for new guidelines to tighten the city’s monitoring of the high-tech tools. All four motions were referred to Wachs’ and Ridley-Thomas’ committees for reviews.

Of the four motions, Wachs’ goes furthest, recommending that individual departments be forced to pay for their phones out of their own budgets rather than having the mammoth Department of General Services pick up the tab for all the phones. Wachs also suggested that all employees who are assigned phones sign a written acknowledgment that they have read the city’s guidelines on phone usage and agree to follow them.

“Human nature is such that when you have to pay for your own, you’re a lot more careful than if someone else is paying for it. That’s the bottom line,” said Wachs, whose monthly cellular phone tab--$62--was second from the bottom. “In one fell swoop, this will immediately cut out an enormous chunk of abuse and save thousands of dollars.”

Ridley-Thomas, whose $645 average monthly bill ranked him among the 10 highest cellular phone users in all of local government, proposed that the city develop a tracking system for all its phones and survey other cities about their oversight procedures.

Ridley-Thomas said the focus must move from who has the highest bills to the lax oversight that has allowed the city to keep paying bills even when the user of the phone is unknown or the number has been “cloned,” a process through which thieves can make fraudulent calls. The Times reported that the city initially could not determine who was using more than 150 of its estimated 600 cellular phones.

“What’s missing in the equation is how much money is being saved by the use of these cellular phones,” said Ridley-Thomas, noting that his own bill amounts to about $20, or an hour of phone time, each day. “It has substantially increased my efficiency, and it is cost-effective because the only other alternative is to hire another staff person who can help with returning the calls. It seems to me the taxpayers come out ahead.”

Chick’s proposal went beyond cellular phones and asked city bureaucrats to develop a tracking system for long-distance calls and to provide prompter billing so employees can readily reimburse the city for personal calls.

Currently, city employees who make long-distance calls as part of their jobs are given individual access codes as well as calling cards to use when they are not in the office.

But Chick’s staff members have found it difficult to get copies of their individual bills in a timely fashion, making it tough for employees to remember why they called certain numbers, and reducing the chance that they will write reimbursement checks to the city.

Cellular phone users reported similar problems, with many saying they hadn’t seen their bills in months, meaning they could not make reimbursements for personal calls as required by city policy.

On Monday, City Controller Rick Tuttle urged Riordan to order all department heads to have their cellular phone users review bills for the past year and make any necessary reimbursements.

Despite the all-business tone of the motions, there was a dose of levity Tuesday. Councilman Hal Bernson, whose $58 monthly bill was the lowest on the panel, apologized to a reporter for not returning a phone call Monday, saying he didn’t have his cellular phone handy.

With the highest bills on the council at $693 a month, however, Councilman Richard Alatorre quipped that he did not dare return the call on his cellular phone.

Times staff writers Jeff Brazil and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this story.