City Hall Needs Quality Control : Los Angeles: A position to monitor bond measure projects would keep them on track to fulfill the voters’ mandate.

Los Angeles continues to mismanage voter-approved bond measures, with severe implications for city services. Whether the seismic retrofit of City Hall, on hold because of $150 million in cost overruns, or the failure to construct two promised police stations after passage of a police facilities bond issue in 1989, this breakdown is undermining government’s ability to honor its commitments.

Unless City Hall makes a radical break with old ways of doing business in this crucial area, our breach of faith with voters may result in their rejecting bond measures. Creating a publicly accountable position is a fundamental solution for a system in disrepair.

With annual city revenue more scarce than ever, voter-approved bond measures are one of the few methods left to fund significant capital projects. But voters rightly are increasingly skeptical that the dollars they approve will actually be spent on the projects in the ballot measures.

Even with public safety the foremost issue on most voters’ minds, Los Angeles residents refused to pass a police facilities bond measure in 1995. As a result, for the indefinite future, some officers will continue to change into uniforms in their cars for lack of locker rooms and detectives will conduct interviews in shower stalls in overcrowded stations.

Voters rejected this measure in large part because they recalled the 1989 one in which two promised police stations--one in the mid-San Fernando Valley and the other in the Wilshire-Rampart area west of downtown--never materialized because the city produced inaccurate cost estimates, failed to maintain adequate controls on the projects and ultimately ran out of money.

This mishandling of bond programs was by no means exceptional. A recent report prepared for the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee by the city’s administrative officer revealed glaring weaknesses in the way officials plan and execute capital projects funded with public bond money. There is too little advance planning, with initial construction cost estimates often hurriedly thrown together by staffers racing to meet ballot deadlines. These estimates frequently are too low, sometimes based on assumptions about how much bond authority voters will approve, rather than hard data.

Once voters do approve bond issues, the funded projects take too long to design and construct. Cost overruns are commonplace, with no one ultimately empowered to say “no.” Indeed, as too often is true throughout city government, there is no central, accountable public entity with the authority to direct all agencies involved.

When funds are exhausted before approved projects are completed, there is no clear method for prioritizing the projects to defer or jettison altogether. Since there is no schedule for reporting progress to elected officials, voter expectations can be undermined without even a meaningful public hearing. Meanwhile, badly needed projects remain unbuilt.

The bottom line is clear: Unless civic officials can demonstrate to voters that the city will keep promises on bond measures, the electorate may never pass another and we will face a crippling lack of basic city services as a result.

We sorely need a new focus on old-fashioned accountability coupled with directive authority, planning and fiscal oversight. Toward that end, the city should establish a position providing for oversight management authority on all voter-approved bond measures.

The person in this position should be responsible for conducting a financial analysis of each proposed bond measure before it is placed on the ballot, to ensure there will be adequate funds. The bond authority would oversee the timely design and construction of all bond projects, defining eligible future expenditures and reining in cost overruns before they escalate out of control. This person would also provide monthly status reports to the City Council on progress toward promised goals, placing the council on notice of problems before it is too late to act.

In the weeks ahead, the City Council will have the opportunity to restructure how City Hall tackles bond measures fundamental to basic municipal services. The voters have sent elected officials a loud message. It’s time we listen.