$1.4-Million-a-Year Idea Rewarded With Free Lunch

First prize was lunch with the mayor--and it turned out to be soda pop sipped from cans and cheap takeout salads eaten with plastic forks at a City Hall conference table.

But what else should the winner of Mayor Richard Riordan’s “Bright Budget Ideas Contest” have expected Thursday?

The goal of the competition among Los Angeles’ 48,000 workers was to come up with suggestions to save money and help ease the city’s projected $240-million budget deficit. So an economical grand prize lunch was certainly a good idea.

And the salad wasn’t all that bad, either, said Police Officer Arnold Sulton. He is the Northeast Division narcotics detective whose idea was picked by Riordan as the best of the 200 submitted.

Sulton--a 56-year-old former computer scientist who joined the police force eight years ago--proposed modifying the police computer system to streamline processing of stolen cars.

His idea will speed the return of recovered vehicles to their owners by letting detectives search for fingerprints faster. The investigators’ increased efficiency will lead to a reduction in automobile impound fees faced by car owners.

“It will save the city a lot of money,” Riordan said between bites of salad. “More importantly, it will help solve crimes more certainly and more quickly.”

“I think that’s fairly accurate,” replied Sulton, looking up from his takeout container.

“Fairly accurate?” gulped the mayor.

“I think I wanted to say that’s a fair statement,” responded Sulton.

In fact, according to officials, Sulton’s idea will save the city an estimated $1.4 million a year in detective time, plus $1.6 million in citizen-paid impound fees.

Riordan said a city task force is studying all of the contest’s entries. “We have some tremendous ideas that will save tens of millions of dollars, literally,” he said.

Suggestions range from the creation of a centralized heavy equipment pool that would prevent duplicate purchases of seldom-used machinery to the elimination of the mayor’s $1-per-year salary.

“I really should do that because I’ll bet it costs them $200 a year to process my dollar a year,” Riordan said. “I get these withholding statements: .009 cents withheld for the month.”

The contest’s second-place winner, city clerk’s office worker Michael Wilson, predicted that his department can save $1.6 million yearly providing city auditors with laptop computers.

Third-place winner Thomas Valenzuela of the Division of Street Maintenance proposed using an off-the-shelf computer program to schedule and oversee city tree-trimming projects more efficiently.

Steven Smith, a Department of Water and Power employee who placed fourth, recommended combining water and electricity hookup crews so residents do not have to wait around for separate teams to show up to connect their utilities.

Fifth-place winners Vicki Tan of the DWP and Bill Weeks of the Community Development Department urged that computers be used to eliminate paper forms in their offices.

Although contest entrants could someday receive cash rewards if their ideas are implemented and actually save money, the runners-up are in line for other prizes next week, according to Riordan aide Caprice Young.

A snack with Riordan, perhaps?

“They’re all getting proclamations from the mayor,” Young said.