Rules Must Cover the Boss Too : Absenteeism of leader of troubled L.A. city agency demands an answer

There is abundant reason for General Services Department chief Randall C. Bacon, as head of one of the city’s largest and most beleaguered departments, to be spending lots of time in the office these days. But attendance records show that the official was absent one of every four workdays last year. The hours registered as sick leave equaled about six weeks.

Under city policy, employees must explain frequent sick leaves. In the Department of General Services, the ceiling is six cases of illness and 97 hours of sick time over the course of a year. If either of those levels are exceeded, the supervisor of the employee involved must initiate a review.

So why didn’t Bacon’s immediate supervisor, Mayor Richard Riordan, demand a full accounting from the department director? When asked whether the administration would conduct a formal review, Michael Keeley, an aide to Riordan, replied that “the mayor’s goal is not to count vacation and sick time. It’s to meet performance standards.”

So it’s all a matter of having met performance standards? Then how does the Riordan administration explain the audits over the last two years in which the General Services Department was shown to have overpaid for supplies? And what of the instance in which one of Bacon’s underlings paid himself more than $100,000 in overtime for work that was never done? And how about the sorry state of maintenance supervision over the city’s trash truck fleet, a condition that led to the deaths of two 8-year-olds in December when a malfunctioning trash truck sent a compacting piston into a school bus? Are these cases reflections of high performance?

Bacon refused to explain the nature of his illness, telling a Times reporter, “I don’t feel I owe an explanation to you.” If Riordan does not act, an investigation by officials including Controller Rick Tuttle and City Council members should be done. Bacon is paid $133,903 a year to serve the people of Los Angeles. He is in charge of a $172-million budget and 1,752 employees. If City Hall expects employees to play by the rules, it is going to have to make sure top managers do so too.