CHIEF FISCAL OFFICER RESIGNS MTA POST : TOP BRASS DEPARTURES SINCE MAY NOW TOTAL 3.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's top fiscal official has resigned, becoming the third high executive at the agency to leave since May under new Chief Executive Officer Joseph Drew.

Chief Financial Officer Ronny Goldsmith resigned Aug. 30 ``for personal reasons,'' said Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Steve Chesser.

Goldsmith did not respond to efforts to contact her.

Linda Bohlinger, deputy chief executive officer at the transit agency, said she was looking for someone to replace Goldsmith and declined to discuss personnel matters related to her departure.

``My job is to look at the leadership of each of the departments beneath me and since she has resigned, I'm looking internally and externally for a replacement,'' Bohlinger said.

Goldsmith's resignation came two days after the release of a state audit that said the agency's 20-year transportation plan was $1.3 billion short in its projections and that the 1995-96 budget was off by $14 million.

But ``the audit had nothing to do with Ronny's resigning,'' Bohlinger said.

Agency officials heavily criticized the audit, saying it confused source data from separate fiscal years and ignored the fact that the long-range plan is designed to be updated biannually with new financial assumptions and spending priorities.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, an MTA board member, said Goldsmith shouldn't be blamed for any problems highlighted in the audit.

``I don't think she's the reason for the state audit,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``The board of the MTA is responsible for that audit. The figures don't add up.''

Bohlinger said the agency is reviewing its finances and ``scrubbing the numbers to make sure the right numbers are in the right columns'' as part of a process to ensure that the agency has as much flexibility as possible with funds that often carry limits on how they can be spent.

Goldsmith also has been involved in efforts by the MTA to create a single pay, pension and benefits system for its workers.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, formed April 1, 1993, from the merger of the county Transportation Commission and the Southern California Rapid Transit District, still provides different wage and benefit packages to former employees of the predecessor agencies.

Goldsmith has been trying to get federal and union approvals for a unified pension system that would take thousands of former bus system workers out of Social Security and put them in a system run by the state Public Employees Retirement System, or a separate pension system run by the MTA.

Those 3-year-old negotiations recently foundered when union leaders turned down the MTA's proposed settlement, Bohlinger said.

The different pay packages also led to a recent suit by one mechanics manager who has accused the agency of wage discrimination and disparate treatment for failing to resolve the differing packages. A hearing will be held Sept. 19 to determine whether the case can be turned into a class-action suit covering more than 8,000 MTA workers.

Goldsmith's departure is the third of top MTA officials in recent months, and the sixth of high-ranking officials in the past year or so.

Other recent top departures include two chief administrative officers, an executive officer running bus and rail operations, and the head of the agency's external relations section.

Drew was the replacement for Chief Executive Officer Franklin White, fired in December.

Goldsmith joined the agency in May 1995, coming from Alameda County Transit, where she had also been chief financial officer.

Rod Dawson, who had recently been transferred to Goldsmith's department, was named as the acting chief financial officer while a nationwide search for a replacement is conducted, said MTA Media Relations Director Jim Smart.