City Tab for Cell Phones Increases

To rein in the city’s rapidly rising bill for cell phone service, the Los Angeles City Council made changes in 1996 aimed at protecting taxpayers against extravagant or unnecessary charges and controlling the number of cell phones in the hands of city workers.

Today, some top officials are still tallying monthly bills of $500 to $840, and the number of employees with city cell phones has more than tripled since 1996, to 4,105 users. The city’s cell phone bill reached $1.5 million in 2002, an increase of 72% since the reforms were implemented.

As the technology has advanced and costs have fallen, cell phones have become an increasingly popular workplace tool. Many city officials and experts say it makes sense for government to join the trend and contend that cell phones have improved local government by making public servants more accessible to residents.

“This is a new world,” said Councilman Dennis Zine, who rang up a $796 bill in December. “The technology provides instant access. People can call me. I can call people right back, even when I’m not in the office.”

But lax oversight and a failure to fully take advantage of the best rate plans have limited the city’s ability to control costs, interviews and a review of city records show. Many of the same issues the council tackled in 1996 remain problems today.

Mayor James K. Hahn is concerned enough by the increase in cell phone costs that he has asked the Information Technology Agency to review the city’s policies and recommend possible additional reforms, said Deputy Mayor Doane Liu.

“He knows that the expenses have increased,” Liu said. “What he’d like to do is find out if there is a practical explanation for it: Are other cities experiencing the same trend? Has there been a corresponding increase in productivity?”

A review of cell phone records for 2001 and 2002 show that some officials rely more than others on their city-issued cell phones.

Zine averaged $328 a month last year, the highest among the council’s 15 members. He was followed by Councilman Nate Holden, with an average of $307 a month, Nick Pacheco at $275 and Alex Padilla at $230. Mark Ridley-Thomas, who left the council in December to join the state Assembly, averaged $452 a month in 2001. His charges included one monthly bill of $840.

Their bills contrast with those of Councilwomen Ruth Galanter and Cindy Miscikowski, who averaged $37 and $42 a month, respectively, last year. Among top nonelected city officials, Public Works Board member Adriana Rubalcava ranked as the biggest cell phone user, with an average monthly bill last year of $419. Mayor Hahn’s cell phone bills averaged a relatively low $120 a month in 2002.

“Cell phone use is expensive and this is the people’s money, so I try not to use the cell phone for calls that can wait for my return to the office,” Galanter said.

The City Council reviewed cell phone use in 1996 after an investigation by The Times found that costs had increased 60% in the prior fiscal year, and that Los Angeles spent a larger amount of public funds on cell phones than other major cities.

A new comparison found that Los Angeles still has more cell phones per employee than some other large municipalities. In 1996, 4% of Los Angeles city employees had city-issued cell phones. Now 12% have them.

In comparison, 5.8% of Chicago city employees get cell phones as part of their jobs, while, in Philadelphia, 6% of city employees have cell phones.

The Times investigation in 1996 found evidence of poor oversight, including an inability to account for all city phones and who was using them. Officials were not seeing their bills before they were paid, and the city was not getting the best rates offered by wireless companies.

To address those concerns, the City Council adopted 11 changes recommended by a task force appointed to examine the issue. The guiding principle of the reform package was to decentralize responsibility for overseeing city cell phones while also negotiating the best deal for the city. The council required the city to seek new competitive bids for service plans to see if it could get better rates. There is evidence, however, that the city has not been getting the lowest available rates, even recently.

For years, the city joined a master contract for the state that provided a 9% government discount on AT&T; Wireless service. But in July, a separate government acquisition consortium called the Western States Contracting Alliance negotiated a plan with AT&T; Wireless that offers a 15% discount.

Los Angeles city officials did not switch over to that contract until this April, missing 10 months of deeper discounts, officials said. The new plan also eliminates a 1.21% administrative fee that the city had been charged by the state for new equipment purchases.

“We had to study it,” said Loy Paguia, a supervisor for the Information Technology Agency, which monitors changes in rates and plans. She said that, by taking its time, the city was able to negotiate the elimination of a $36 acquisition fee that the Western States Contracting Alliance was going to charge for new equipment.

The master contract was not the only problem. Under current city rules, each department is expected to choose from a menu of plans, selecting the one that best suits its needs. An employee who uses the cell phone infrequently might save money by taking a plan with 250 free minutes and a low monthly fee, while a frequent cell phone user would benefit from paying more for a larger number of free minutes, Paguia said.

Because the 1996 reforms decentralized the decision, Information Technology Agency officials cannot say whether all departments and all employees are using the most cost-effective plans. Interviews indicate many employees have not signed up for the most appropriate plans.

Zine’s plan, for instance, gave him 2,000 free weekday minutes for $70 a month, but in November he logged 2,402 “additional” minutes not covered by the base rate and was charged 25 cents a minute, for an added cost of $600. His bill that month was $676. Zine, who makes many of his calls during his 35-mile commute from the West San Fernando Valley to City Hall, said he recently switched to a plan that provides unlimited minutes.

To control the number of wireless devices in circulation, the council in 1996 required employees to file applications for phones with their department general managers. They must show that they have a high level of responsibility and a role in emergency response or that they are involved in managing field operations, Paguia said.

Under this system, the number of employees authorized to have city cell phones has increased from 1,287 to 4,105 and the spending has gone from $872,000 annually to $1.5 million. The 1996 task force study found that the mayor and council and their staffs had 89 phones. Today, they have 197 cell phones.

Because oversight is decentralized, there are no citywide figures available on how many applications have been rejected.

At the General Services Department, Assistant General Manager Tony DeClue said about 30 additional employees were authorized last year to get cell phones. Most were custodial people. The requests of about 50 other workers were denied. In all, 340 of the department’s 2,300 employees have been issued cell phones, and most are in field posts involving construction and maintenance, DeClue said.

“People know if they are a clerk-typist they shouldn’t even apply,” he said.

The council had hoped to improve accountability by making each department responsible for paying its own cell phone bills rather than having bills sent to one central paymaster, who did not always notify users of high tallies. But interviews indicate city workers are often trusted to police themselves. For example, the city clerk’s office, which oversees the cell phones of the City Council, leaves it up to each council office to determine whether costs are running too high and to identify personal calls that should be reimbursed.

Zine, Pacheco and other city officials said they still do not see their bills and often rely on staff members to review them.

“I don’t see my cell phone bills. They get paid through the bureaucracy,” Pacheco said. “As long as we stay within our office budget, I think we are being responsible.” Asked about a $551 bill, Pacheco said. “I can’t tell you what happened.”

Zine looked at his $796 bill after The Times asked him about it. He said that bill included a call to a retired police officer in Idaho who was having a problem with the LAPD.

Rubalcava, appointed to the Public Works Board in October 2001, said she too was not seeing bills before they were paid. “My bill for February was the first time I have ever seen a cell phone bill since I have been on the board,” she said.

Rubalcava, who oversees the Sanitation Bureau for the board, said she discovered $300 worth of personal calls on that $679 bill. She said she promptly reimbursed the city for those calls.

Many users with high bills, including Ridley-Thomas, say their reliance on cell phones reflects a more responsive style of governing. “You can’t penalize a high user as if he or she is doing something inappropriate just because he takes advantage of technology to more assertively communicate with constituents,” Ridley-Thomas said.

That same argument is put forward by Greg Nelson, general manager of the city Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. As head of the department responsible for overseeing the creation of more than 60 neighborhood councils, he averaged $248 a month. His bill last June hit $746, which he said resulted when a promotional flat-rate plan expired and his staff did not catch it for a couple of months.

“If it is used correctly, the cell phone can provide a tremendous advantage,” Nelson said, reached on his city cell phone while he was on a mountain biking excursion in Minnesota.