O.C. Officials' Travel Spending Is Going Up Fast

By SHELBY GRAD

March 22, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SANTA ANA —

After being cut back during the county’s financial crisis, travel and convention spending by Orange County officials is back on a pre-bankruptcy pace again, according to records released Friday.

Travel expenditures and association dues during the first half of the current July-June fiscal year totaled $651,043--back to the level that prevailed in the year before the bankruptcy, and almost as much as the county spent during all of the previous fiscal year.

The biggest travel spender is the county’s court system, which has said it will have to shut down from mid-May until the end of June, unless the county provides $13.9 million in additional funding.

Orange County Superior Court alone racked up $100,900 in bills during the 1995-96 budget year--30% more than any other agency, including the Orange County Fire Authority, which sent firefighters on emergency missions to Northern California, Oklahoma and elsewhere.

For the first six months of this fiscal year, the superior and municipal courts accounted for a fourth of all county travel expenditures, or $107,374, according to records The Times obtained under the California Public Records Act.

The revelations come as local judges are threatening to sign a court order forcing the county to hand over an additional $13.9 million to the courts, unless negotiations scheduled to resume next week between supervisors and the judges produce a funding agreement.

County officials on Friday said the travel spending raises questions about whether the courts’ financial picture is as dire as the judges contend.

“These expenditures hurt the courts’ credibility, especially during negotiations when they represent that they won’t be able to keep their doors open,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner. “Are these costs justified, or is everybody just doing their own thing without regard to budget priorities?”

Court administrators defended their travel spending, saying the bulk of it went for legal training seminars attended by judges, commissioners and other court officers.

“The legal field is constantly changing. Every time the Legislature enacts hundreds of new laws, it affects the things we do. We have to keep up on the law,” said Alan Slater, executive officer of the Orange County Superior Court.

“It’s not cheap,” Slater added. “But we do the best we can to hold down costs.”

Slater said that some of the training sessions are required by the state and that relatively few of them are held in Orange County. “It’s not like another department where we can do this in-house,” he said. “It’s done on a statewide basis.”

Beyond training, Slater said, he and other administrators attend a variety of legal association and state committee meetings at which new judicial rules and operating standards are discussed and adopted.

Slater attended more than a dozen out-of-town meetings, legal conferences and seminars over the last year, according to travel records, including trips to Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland and Williamsburg, Va., home of the National Center for State Courts.

“It’s important to be there,” he added. “We have to have input in these decisions, or it will cost us more money later.”

Officials in County Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier’s office said Friday they were still studying the court’s travel records.

“On the surface, it seems like a high percentage of the total, but it deserves a more independent review,” said Chief Financial Officer Gary Burton.

Although total county travel expenses are rising, they remain below totals recorded before the county’s December 1994 bankruptcy.

In the 1994-95 budget year, travel and membership costs totaled $1,129,758. But after the county filed for bankruptcy in early December 1994, the Board of Supervisors established rules severely curtailing travel spending and told departments to let some association memberships lapse. As a result, travel and membership spending dropped to $675,972 in 1995-96.

But over the first six months of the current 1996-97 budget year, spending is up to $651,043, with a few departments already exceeding their totals for last year.

The assessor’s office spent $60,388 last year, but $69,012 in the first six months of this year. The Sheriff’s Department spent $16,508 last year but $24,998 so far this year.

“I think you are going to see the pendulum swing back this way,” Burton said. “We had cut all possible discretionary travel [during the bankruptcy]. You are seeing some of that coming back.”

Burton said some travel and conference expenses pay off, especially when it involves implementation of new laws and efforts to improve the county’s bankruptcy-battered reputation.

“We are part of a bigger community, and some travel is necessary to build trust on Wall Street, and be a part of the larger community,” Burton said. “We try to keep our costs down to a minimum. No one is going to the French Riviera.”

Mittermeier’s travel records, for example, include meetings in Washington related to the proposed El Toro airport, and New York trips to confer with Wall Street investors.

Beside the courts, other county agencies to post top travel bills included the Social Services Agency, Health Care Agency, Community Services Agency, Integrated Waste Management Department, the assessor’s office and John Wayne Airport.

Burton said the county closely monitors travel costs to quickly identify abuse.

In 1994, the Orange County Vector Control District was criticized for spending more than $100,000 over three years on travel expenses for employees and board members. After the spending was publicized, the district established stricter travel and conference rules.

The Vector Control District recorded $29,902 in travel costs last year and $15,198 so far this year.

County officials said they couldn’t tell whether travel expenditures for the second half of the fiscal year will match those in the first half. But they said spending on association memberships should be somewhat less because most dues are collected during the first part of the year.

At the Orange County Fire Authority, much of the $43,000 that was spent on travel to emergency situations outside the county was reimbursed by the agencies who requested the help.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Going Up Again

After dropping after the bankruptcy, county government travel expenditures, including meetings, conferences, out-of-town transportation and association membership dues, are rising again. Expenses in the first six months of the 1996-97 fiscal year nearly equal last year’s total:

1993-94: $1,684,844

1994-95: $1,320,474

1995-96: $675,972

July-December, 1996*: $651,043

****

Departments and agencies spending the most on travel and conferences:

1995-96

Superior Court: $100,965

Fire Authority: $66,385

Assessor: $60,388

Integrated Waste Management: $59,602

Health Care Agency: $45,124