BOARD OKS $14 MILLION FOR SHERIFF'S HELICOPTERS.

Byline: - Troy Anderson

Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to allow Sheriff Lee Baca to spend $14 million to buy six helicopters.

Baca wanted to buy 12 helicopters, for a total of $29 million, but the supervisors said they will decide on the other six in April. They also asked him to negotiate with Eurocopter Corp. to waive a $1.3 million penalty for breaking the contract in two.

The Sheriff's Department currently has 11 helicopters - eight of which need to be replaced because of age, and three acquired in 1997 that have developed cracks. The 12th aircraft crashed in 2000.

The supervisors said they were frustrated by the request because it comes at a time when Baca has been releasing prisoners early from county jails in order to balance his budget.

``The Sheriff's Department has never replaced all of its helicopters in one purchase,'' board Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky said.

The supervisors were clearly displeased when Aero Bureau Capt. James Di Giovanna told them $579,000 obtained from an insurance settlement on the helicopter that crashed in 2000 was used to pay for Baca's controversial purchase of a $2.4 million executive aircraft last year.

Di Giovanna said the U.S. Border Patrol and the Orange and San Bernardino County Sheriff's departments bought similar helicopters that have since developed cracks and there was no way to anticipate the problem before making the purchase.

Under the seven-year lease financing plan, the Aero Bureau expects to get more than $6 million by auctioning off the existing helicopters to cover the costs of the new helicopters in the first two years.

But Yaroslavsky said the purchase will begin costing the county more than $5 million in 2004-05 and he said he didn't like the department springing the request on the supervisors after they had approved the county's budget.