L.A. City Council’s unclear attack on waste and abuse

Waste, fraud and abuse. It’s a mantra. It’s a cliche. It’s shorthand for righteous indignation about government, expressed not merely by citizens unhappy with their politicians but also by candidates and elected officials seeking to separate themselves from the pack. “They’re all bad, but I’m different. I’m on your side.”

Of the three, fraud is the easiest to identify. It’s a crime. It gets reported, and police and prosecutors take it from there. But one person’s waste or abuse is another person’s policy decision. The L.A. City Council constantly gives away excess or outmoded equipment to another city or to a charity rather than auction it off to the highest bidder. Waste or efficiency? It’s a judgment call.

So it’s easy to question a proposal by Councilman Dennis Zine and Controller Wendy Greuel to require city employees to report one another’s waste, fraud and abuse. If a city worker fails to figure out that a colleague’s action can be defined as one of the big three, or fails to report it, he or she will be punished with — well, with what? That hasn’t been discussed.

There’s nothing wrong with cracking down on employee misconduct, especially given incidents such as the one reported by The Times last Sunday, in which a Housing Department clerk was discovered to have been taking bribes. But the punch line wasn’t the bribery; the clerk was caught, fired and prosecuted. The problem was that after department officials called the police, they didn’t also tell the City Council or the controller. The folks at the mayor’s office can’t recall whether they were notified or not. That’s a problem because the mayor and the council need to know what’s happening in city departments, and the elected controller is an important part of Los Angeles’ system of checks and balances. She could, with timely information about wrongdoing, audit for more systemic problems.

If a city worker doesn’t know it’s wrong to take bribes, or if it hasn’t been made clear to department chiefs that they must report misconduct, the solution is not more laws. The solution is better management. Employee culture starts with the mayor, goes down the line to the department leaders and middle managers and to the front-line clerks and field workers, and back again to the top. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa certainly never told his team he was OK with employee bribery and theft, but he is ultimately responsible for instilling, or failing to instill, a culture of responsibility and responsiveness.

Still, a requirement to report to an official outside the chain of command has merit. Given that good management is no guarantee, keeping the controller in the loop could help — if city lawyers drafting the proposal into law can effectively define waste and abuse and clarify the consequences of failing to report.