Benefits Agency for LAPD Assailed

An audit released Thursday of the organization that handles health and retirement benefits for the Los Angeles Police Department found the agency was poorly organized and had charged the city more than $1.3 million since 1994 for members no longer entitled to benefits.

“The management should be ashamed and embarrassed of themselves,” said City Controller Laura Chick, who ordered the audit of the Los Angeles Police Relief Assn. after a former executive director alleged mismanagement at the nonprofit agency.

“What we’ve seen so far is that this organization is not a well-run business.”

The $1.37 million in medical subsidies the city paid the organization was due to an outdated database that listed former members as active, according to the audit. The agency has since credited the city with the overpayment.

“Although LAPRA has done an admirable job in providing very good benefits to its members at low contribution levels, our review found that LAPRA’s overall management and administration of plan benefits to its members needs improvement,” auditors wrote.

But Chick said the Police Protective League and the Police Command Officers Assn. negotiates benefit packages and the relief agency merely administers them.

The president of the relief agency, LAPD Capt. Charles Beck, said the problems cited in the audit stemmed from actions of former Executive Director Ramona Voge, who was fired in January.

Voge has filed a $10-million wrongful-termination lawsuit against the agency and the city. “It’s exactly as my client said it was, in that there is massive mismanagement bordering on criminal behavior,” said Voge’s lawyer, Dan Stormer. “They have been hiding behind their badges and their ability to not allow anyone to look at their books.”

The audit, performed by a Washington, D.C., accounting firm, recommended the agency immediately correct and update its database and confirm benefit plan coverage with each of its 17,000 members.

“The most glaring point of the audit is that an organization that is handling millions of public dollars is a badly run business operation, and that is mind-boggling to me,” Chick said.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo petitioned Los Angeles Superior Court this week to obtain two internal audits the agency conducted. Beck has refused to turn them over, saying they contain personal information on members that is protected under state law.

LAPD Internal Affairs also is investigating the agency.