BOARD EXPECTED TO BOOST OVERSIGHT OF SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT'S FINANCES.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

For the last 24 years, the Sheriff's Department has renewed an $8 million deal with a school district to provide vocational training to inmates in county jail without putting the contract out to competitive bid.

Eight sergeants working in county jails each racked up more than 1,000 hours of overtime last year, each boosting their base salaries by between $50,000 and $60,000.

For the last two years, a $6.4 million car maintenance contract with Johnson Controls World Service Inc. has been increased by $900,000. But nobody told the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which is supposed to approve any increases over $100,000.

These were just three of the findings of the county auditor-controller's report on the Sheriff's Department's payroll and contracting procedures, which is slated to be taken up by the Board of Supervisors today.

The panel is expected to approve a motion, authored by Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael Antonovich, directing the auditor-controller to take a hands-on role in fixing the Sheriff's Department's problems, including controlling overtime, bogus bonuses, perpetual contracts and questionable purchasing practices.

The department, led by Sheriff Sherman Block, has for decades been the most independent agency in county government. But last year, the supervisors ordered a series of audits designed to unlock the mystery of how the elected sheriff was spending his $1 billion budget.

But now Block faces a new level of scrutiny, a fate he accepted last year when he agreed to open his books to county auditors. Block has not commented on the audit, but Sharon Bunn, fiscal director of administrative services for the Sheriff's Department, said the problem areas will be addressed.

``There are changes we need to institute. I think it will make us a better organization,'' Bunn said. Still, she admitted that it will be a challenge to change the mind-set of some employees.

``People don't like change,'' Bunn said.

All this audit talk started two years ago, when the supervisors were scrambling to fill a $1.2 billion budget gap.

During the height of the county's budget crisis back in 1995, Block told the Board of Supervisors there was not one dime he could cut from his $1 billion budget.

Last year, he said he didn't have the money to open the new $373 million Twin Towers Correctional Facility downtown. When the supervisors directed him to cut his budget to pay for the opening, he said he would only be able to ante up $14 million by pulling 400 deputies off the street.

Seeking to check for themselves whether or not the sheriff had cash to spare, the supervisors ordered a series of audits.

Before the payroll and contracts audit was done, two previous audits showed the sheriff had the ability to save tens of millions of dollars a year.

``I think (Block) has a need to clean house, to identify problem areas and problem individuals,'' Yaroslavsky said of the latest audit. ``To have this kind of lack of attention to detail in money management is unconscionable.''