City’s Cellular Phone Tab Higher Than Believed

While scrambling to scotch the extravagant use of cellular phones by government employees, Los Angeles officials acknowledged Tuesday that the cost to the public is even higher than initially thought.

As Mayor Richard Riordan’s task force on cellular phones convened its first meeting, the city said it expects cellular bills to leap well beyond figures earlier provided to The Times. The newspaper revealed recently that as much as $3 million was being spent annually on cellular phone calls by city and county workers.

The reason the tab is expected to rise: Officials neglected to factor in special charges on long distance calls levied by a separate phone carrier, Sprint. The tardy discovery--which has further highlighted the chronic gaps in monitoring cellular phones--was made as city bureaucrats tried to figure out how much is being spent on calls and by whom.

To determine the amount of the new charges, city officials say they have requested a report from Sprint on the cost of calls made by city workers in 1995.

Since The Times reported earlier this month that Los Angeles city and county workers have run up the biggest government cellular phone bills of any U.S. municipality, there have been pledges of systemic reform and vows by some users with high bills to change their expensive ways.

For example, one of the biggest cellular phone users in 1995--cultural affairs general manager Adolfo Nodal, who averaged more than $680 a month--now has a pager he uses in lieu of his cellular phone.

“I learned a lesson,” Nodal said.

And he is not alone.

As William F. Stewart, director of the county’s internal services division, put it: “We were among [AirTouch’s] biggest customers. Now that all this has come to light, everyone of course is reviewing their phones.”

Meanwhile, as investigations proceed, new problems keep coming to light.

Beyond its failure to account for long distance charges, the city also has uncovered a new cache of cellular phones on which it failed to keep tabs.

Officials learned of these 218 additional emergency phones during recent meetings with the city’s primary local phone carrier, AirTouch, which is helping the city sort out its record-keeping and billing problems. The city could not immediately provide billing histories on the newly discovered phones to determine whether they are being used in non-emergency situations.

Even if they have simply been collecting dust somewhere, the cost to the public would be at least $3,600 a month in basic fees.

The county also has undertaken a review of its cellular practices and costs.

On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion by Supervisor Deane Dana designed to make it easier to monitor scores of “pool” phones, cellular phones that are assigned to groups, not individuals.

Dana, whose monthly cellular phone tab of $142 was the lowest of the supervisors, wants the county to develop a coding system that would help police pool phones. The Times found that some city and county pool phones had monthly bills in excess of $2,000.

In recent weeks, the county also has signed a contract with AirTouch that will save taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars each month. The county now will pay $26 a month in basic fees for each of its more than 1,500 phones, instead of $35. In addition, it will pay 26 cents a minute during peak hours instead of 39 cents, and 18 cents a minute off-peak compared to 23 cents.

Although taxpayers will save more than $160,000 a year just from lower basic fees, the county failed to take advantage of these cut-rate charges during the two years that AirTouch has offered them.

Stewart, of the internal services division, which negotiates cellular phone rates for most county departments, said AirTouch never pitched the lowest of its two government rates. “We believed we had the best government rate,” Stewart said.

But AirTouch spokeswoman Melissa May said the company offered the lowest rate, but the county elected not to take it because it involved committing to a yearlong contract with penalties for early withdrawal.

“They have to weigh the pros and cons,” May said. “They chose not to be on the contract rate.”

For more than 2 1/2 years, the city also was paying unnecessarily steep rates. It signed a contract with AirTouch in October after Kelly Wong from the city’s Information Technology Agency inherited responsibility for cellular phones and realized how much could be gained from such a move.

Under the city’s contract, the city pays a $30 basic monthly fee on roughly 600 phones, compared to its past rate, $35. The per-minute charges are 33 cents during peak hours and 21 cents during off-peak times, compared to its previous payments of 39 cents and 23 cents, respectively. The change will save the city $3,000 a month in basic fees alone.

Wong, who has had to sort out the poor state of the cellular phone billing and accounting system, said she could not explain why such a change was not made earlier, other than to say that a contract does have some risks.

“We’re making progress,” Wong said. “Just give us time.”

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