SPECIAL REPORT * Lockheed workers’ gifts to Garcetti campaign a month before he urged extra pay for firm puts spotlight on . . . : Political Donations and Government Decisions

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s reelection campaign received a total of $15,000 from 21 Lockheed Martin IMS employees, most of whom live out of state, a little more than a month before the prosecutor’s office recommended that the Board of Supervisors pay the company an extra $2.5 million for running Los Angeles County’s child support computer system.

The supervisors are scheduled to act on Garcetti’s recommendation Tuesday.

Lockheed and Garcetti’s campaign denied that there was a connection between the gifts and the contract increase, saying the deal had been in the works for months before the donations were made.

The donors listed in the latest campaign disclosure reports include several Lockheed executives and the company’s controller. All but three live outside California and none list residences in Los Angeles County. A review of county campaign records for the past 13 years shows that none of Garcetti’s Lockheed donors had ever given to a Los Angeles County candidate before.

A Lockheed spokesman said the company asked employees to give money to Garcetti’s campaign because the prosecutor has had “a positive impact.” Lockheed itself gave $1,000 to Garcetti’s campaign in May, and $1,000 to the prosecutor’s officeholder account, which can be used for campaign expenditures.

A voter-approved county law limits contributions from individuals or corporations to $1,000 in races in which candidates agree to voluntary fund-raising limits.

Lockheed spokesman Ron Jury said the gifts were appropriate. “These people were asked, ‘Would you be willing to make a contribution to Gil Garcetti as an individual?’ ” he said. “They had a choice.”

Jury said no donors were reimbursed by the company, and a spokeswoman for the state Fair Political Practices Commission said that in such instances the donations do not violate California law.

Charlotte Dobbs, a veteran fund-raiser working on Garcetti’s campaign, said multiple gifts such as the Lockheed employees’ are not unusual in any race. “When people meet Gil, they really like him,” she said. “He’s a very warm, honest person who’s doing a fine job.”

Lockheed filed its legal claim over the child support issue in February. A month later a top Garcetti aide wrote a memo to the county counsel’s office saying the claim should be paid because the company’s workload had risen 134% since 1995, rather than the 36% increase projected in the contract. Fewer than 60 days later, the first donations to Garcetti’s campaign were made.

In its claim, Lockheed alleged that it was being shortchanged because its computer system was collecting more child support than had been projected in its initial 1995 contract.

The next month, Assistant Dist. Atty. Sharon Matsumoto wrote a memo to the county counsel’s office, saying that Lockheed performed the work “competently” and that the office wanted to avoid litigation. She noted that the Board of Supervisors would have to approve the increase.

On May 14, Lockheed Martin IMS made its $2,000 in corporate donations. It sponsored a dinner at which about eight executives met with Garcetti in Washington, part of a fund-raising event that included other Capitol lobbyists, according to Garcetti’s campaign and Lockheed.

In late June, Jury said, Lockheed employees were solicited for donations. On June 25, 29 and 30, the 21 employees’ checks were received, according to Garcetti’s campaign statement. The gifts ranged from $250 to $1,000, the maximum allowed by county regulations.

Reached at their homes, Lockheed employees refused to discuss the donations in detail.

George Crocker of Austin, Texas, said he gives to candidates “who can make a positive contribution to the community.” Asked why an Austin resident was concerned about Los Angeles, Crocker--who gave Garcetti $993.16 on June 30--replied: “I visit a lot,” refused to discuss the matter further and hung up.

Craig Holeman of Californians for Political Reform said the donations are troubling.

“This is a classic example of trying to buy influence over an officeholder,” he said. “The fact that it’s the elected official in charge of enforcing campaign finance laws makes it doubly ironic.”

‘It Stinks,’ Says Garcetti Challenger

Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen L. Cooley, who is challenging Garcetti in the March 2000 primary, called the donations “a transparent attempt to defeat the contribution limits passed by the voters in 1996. . . . It stinks.”

The county’s campaign law caps personal donations to campaigns at $1,000 if candidates agree to abide by limits on overall campaign fund-raising. If such a candidate spends some of his or her personal money on the campaign, the limits are raised for any opponent who had also agreed to them.

The law also prohibits fund-raising more than 18 months before an election. Therefore, the campaign disclosure forms filed this month--covering Jan. 1 to June 30, the initial reporting period--contain the first snapshot of fund-raising for the district attorney’s race.

Garcetti raised $432,000, more than triple the amount either of his challengers collected. Cooley raised $133,000. Barry Groveman, a former official with the district attorney’s office now heading the team probing the Belmont Learning Complex construction fiasco, raised $119,000.

This is not the first time Lockheed Martin IMS’ donations to Garcetti’s campaign have turned heads.

The subsidiary of the Bethesda, Md.-based aerospace giant Lockheed Martin was hired by the district attorney’s office a decade ago during Ira Reiner’s tenure to design Los Angeles County’s child support computer system.

The initial cost was projected at $24 million, but over the years the price tag rose. In 1994, after Garcetti had become district attorney, his office approved the final delivery of the system at a cost of $55 million. The state and federal government agreed with the increase and paid most of the bill.

Two years later, Garcetti’s reelection campaign received $5,000 from Lockheed Martin IMS, county records show. In 1997 Lockheed gave $4,000.

The county registrar flagged the latter donation, saying it may have violated county campaign finance laws newly approved by voters, according to county documents. As required under those laws, the registrar-recorder’s office referred the matter to the district attorney’s office, noting that the donations might have been allowable if they were used to repay campaign debt.

There is no record of a reply on file, but in documents produced Friday, Garcetti’s campaign said the money was used to retire debt.

Lockheed has a mixed record with child support in California. It is entangled in litigation with the state for a failed $171-million statewide computer system that collapsed in 1997. Lockheed blamed poor state management of the project.

When it began operating in 1995, Los Angeles County’s Lockheed-built system was riddled with glitches, spewing out erroneous bills and sending child support checks to the wrong locations. Workers have repeatedly complained that the computer system is difficult to use and malfunctions, garbling case data and disrupting parents’ lives.

Garcetti’s aides say the problems have been fixed and credit the system for a sharp increase in collections. An ad for Lockheed in a trade publication carried highly complimentary statements about the system by the head of Garcetti’s child support unit, Wayne Doss.

Still, after four years, a key feature of the computer operation--a “tasking system” that is supposed to assign cases to workers--does not function. An audit of the office in 1997 found this to be a grave weakness of the much-criticized program.

After Donations Begin, Lobbying Costs Shrink

Lockheed first registered as a lobbyist with Los Angeles County in 1993, listing as its concerns municipal parking contracts and child support collections. It hired Mike West, chief of staff for former Supervisor Pete Schabarum, and spent more than $62,000 on lobbying over the next five years, according to public records.

In 1995, Lockheed began donating money to elected Los Angeles County officials’ campaigns, and its lobbying expenses began to dwindle. Overall, the company has given about $50,000 to county officials’ campaigns since then, with most of the donations made before this year.

The contributions include a total of $11,000 to Garcetti’s campaign and officeholder funds. Other campaign donations include: $12,000 for Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke; $11,150 for Supervisor Gloria Molina; $7,000 for Supervisor Don Knabe; $6,000 for Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky; and $2,300 for Supervisor Mike Antonovich. The company also gave $1,000 to Assessor Kenneth P. Hahn’s campaign fund in 1997.

Lockheed discontinued its lobbying in January 1998 but revived it this spring after filing the claim. Its stated interests are child support collections and welfare-to-work programs.

Lockheed is one of several companies that placed a bid this year to take over part of Los Angeles County’s welfare-to-work program. County officials last month said an analysis showed that none of the companies could perform the work more efficiently than the county’s welfare office.

Supervisors have not made a decision on the bids.

Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Rabin and researcher Robin Mayper contributed to this story.