CITY OF DOUBLE LIVES; MOONLIGHTING RAMPANT IN CITY HALL, WHERE OVERSIGHT IS LAX.

Byline: Beth Barrett Daily News Staff Writer

Thousands of Los Angeles city workers find time and energy to moonlight on second jobs after hours or weekends, according to records obtained by the Daily News.

The practice of moonlighting has expanded since the City Council eased rules for employees six years ago at the same time elected officials were being barred from earning outside money.

City employees spend their off hours in private law practices; in engineering, planning and architectural consulting businesses; and in real estate. They teach, do other people's taxes and work in medical offices. They deal rare books, and run photography studios and boutiques. Some even get extra cash selling tickets or ushering at Dodger games.

Unlike other major cities, there is no central oversight of moonlighting in Los Angeles.

Potentially haphazard supervision and record-keeping does little to ensure the city is protected from conflicts of interest or that outside work does not interfere with city employment.

``It's virtually impossible to imagine how people can spend a large amount of time on a second job and efficiently do their first job,'' said Tim Lynch, administrative deputy in the City Controller's Office.

``There's no way people can work full time, live a normal life and do this. If it's more than a few hours a week, people are going to be completely distracted from their city functions. It has to encroach.''

Fully 14.7 percent of workers in surveyed city departments moonlight, according to a review of the two-thirds of the general city work force for which records could be obtained.

That's more than double the 5.9 percent rate at which all employed Americans moonlighted during 1997, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.

Nearly 3,000 of the 20,000 workers in the surveyed L.A. city departments - police, City Attorney's Office, general services, information technology agency, and engineering and sanitation bureaus - have permission to moonlight.

The number could be even higher because each department sets its own rules and records often are not kept at a central point.

The city's 3,000 firefighters, who have the most flexibility in their city schedules to moonlight, aren't kept tabs on through a master list, for instance, fire officials said.

The figures also exclude the Library, Recreation and Parks, Utilities, Airports, and Harbor departments.

Nearly one-fourth of the Los Angeles Police Department's 12,600 sworn officers and civilian employees find a way to make money on the side, records show. That's a rate more than double the national average for similar ``protective service'' jobs, according to federal labor statistics.

At the City Attorney's Office, one out of every dozen lawyers, who commonly make six-figure public salaries, do private legal work on the side or operate other kinds of businesses, ranging from a carwash to a fast-food stand.

Even four members of Mayor Richard Riordan's staff moonlight.

Los Angeles' rules on moonlighting were rewritten in 1992 as part of a broad revision of the city's ethics rules, in response to a suit brought by a group of city employee unions challenging the constitutionality of financial disclosure requirements, said Rebecca Avila, the Ethics Commission's executive director.

The regulations banned moonlighting among elected officials, and required strict disclosures by several thousand bureaucrats in decision-making posts, but left wide discretion in handling others who moonlight.

``The ethics law was to get at the elected official and the high-level official who might have a conflict, rather than concern about employees earning outside income,'' said Robert M. Stern, co-director of the Los Angeles-based Center for Government Studies.

With new discretion on lower-ranking employees, City Attorney James Hahn, for instance, reversed the office's longstanding practice of forbidding city attorneys from taking on outside legal work, concluding the new law mandated a case-by-case review instead, said Chief Administrative Officer Matt Middlebrook.

Twenty city attorneys now have authorization to work on private cases, while 11 have received permission to moonlight as outside arbitrators, according to office records.

Chicago and San Francisco are among local governments that continue to prohibit city attorneys from doing outside legal work.

``There was just too much potential for a conflict,'' said Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for Chicago's Law Department.

``Besides, there are logistic problems. How can you conduct an outside practice with court hearings between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and not have it interfere with your city work?''

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has banned moonlighting by his staff altogether, said John Camper, deputy press secretary.

There is no such restriction in Riordan's office, where one mayoral aide runs a pay phone business after hours, another has a band, and a couple teach night classes in Los Angeles Unified School District.

In Los Angeles, where the government doesn't even demand regular reviews of its employees' city job performances, there has been no political will to confront the unions with closer scrutiny of workers' moonlighting habits.

By contrast, San Francisco's city and county charter mandates strict moonlighting accounting, with all non-emergency employees required to file requests with the umbrella Department of Human Resources.

``This, in essence, is the check and balance for making sure the outside work is not in conflict with the scope of their city work,'' said Alice Villagomez, San Francisco deputy director of employee relations.

Raymond Allen, assistant general manager of the city's Personnel Department, said the issue of moonlighting and how to keep tabs on it has never been comprehensively addressed.

``The issue has never come up,'' he said.

Public reports abuses

In the absence of better controls, problems usually aren't detected until a member of the public complains.

Last month, a deputy city attorney was ordered to stop using a city phone number and fax while working on an outside civil case.

The attorney, Deborah Breithaupt, declined comment except to say she is no longer handling the private litigation for a client in a dispute involving the sale of a truck.

Senior Assistant City Attorney Dan Woodard said he ordered Breithaupt to stop using city equipment, but declined to say whether she had been disciplined.

Her case illustrates what internal audits have shown elsewhere in the city - that forms intended to track moonlighting often are filled out incompletely or not at all.

Middlebrook said Breithaupt's request did not state she would be appearing on behalf of private clients in court, an omission she was ordered to correct.

``Obviously a court appearance has to be in someone's request, and she made a court appearance without the request,'' he said.

The city controller last year, in response to public concern, audited the Bureau of Engineering to try to determine whether customers were being steered to city engineers' private firms.

The audit found record keeping was so lax it was impossible to determine whether abuses were in fact occurring.

``The outside employment for some of your employees may be in conflict with their present official duties if fully disclosed as required in your outside employment policy or the city Ethics Commission guidelines,'' the audit concluded.

John Franco, the bureau's chief management analyst, said moonlighting is more tightly monitored now to guarantee workers aren't too fatigued by extracurricular jobs to perform their city duties.

Eighty-four engineering employees have filed outside employment forms, the majority for consulting businesses. Together, they reported they would be working up to 750 hours per week, or an average of about nine hours per week each outside their city jobs.

LAPD Cmdr. David Kalish said the majority of the department's officers follow the rules. Those restrictions prohibit moonlighting in certain businesses, like bars, and restrict outside work to 20 hours per week, among other rules intended to prevent conflicts with officers' city duties.

``They don't want to be disciplined and there is no reason for them not to comply,'' Kalish aid.

The department has approved work permits for 1,615 security jobs, 391 movie set jobs, 119 instruction positions, 82 sales positions and 511 other kinds of work, LAPD computer-generated records show. The number of officers with multiple permits could not be determined, police officials said.

Officers like Chris Cortijo say that legitimate off-duty work helps make up for reductions in city overtime.

``There isn't a lot of overtime coming out of the city now and this is a good way to make something extra on my days off,'' said Cortijo, who for years has done traffic control for movie companies through the private Hollywood firm, Pacific Production Services.

Still, since Jan. 1, 1997, nine officers were found to be working without authorization in connection with more serious matters, from associating with known felons to running illegal pyramid schemes for which they were disciplined, LAPD records show.

Officers have been caught using city equipment - including phones, faxes, computers, radios and other gear - in connection with their outside businesses, disciplinary records reveal.

A way of life

For many, moonlighting has become an essential part of their economic lives. Some say they have to supplement city wages, others hope to make enough on the outside to leave the public sector someday, while still others say it is the way to a better lifestyle.

For the last 15 years, Claudia Summers, a civil engineering drafting technician has worked 40 hours a week for the city, and 13 or so more in a medical office.

It's possible, because she works four 10-hour shifts for the city, she said.L

``Why do I do it? I don't know. My husband says I work too much, but it's just been that way forever. Sometimes you wonder if it's worth it. You have to pay all those taxes.''

Deputy Attorney George Garikian helps run the family-owned California Car Wash in Glendale. It's mostly weekend work, as well as the handling of minor legal matters, he said.

``I just help oversee it after work hours and make sure everything is running as it should,'' he said.

Victor Kalustian, a deputy attorney assigned to a North Hills-area gang unit, said his photography hobby has turned into a small business that mostly involves snapping pictures of kids on sports teams.

``It's not like I could make a living doing it. But after working with the gang unit during the week, spending the weekends with smiling kids swimming and playing flag football relaxes me.''

Titus Wong, a bureau of sanitation management assistant, said he has kept his old college job as an usher for the Dodgers to help pay off his new home in Huntington Beach.

While he loves baseball, Wong, like most city moonlighters, said there's one overriding consideration.

``It's financial.''

MOONLIGHTING

Rates for employees who worked more than one job in 1997:

WORKERS RATE

LAPD officers (xxx) 22%

L.A. city workers (xx) 14.7%

Nationwide police, fire

and security guards 10.3%

Elementary and

secondary teachers 9.7%

Local government workers (x) 9.5%

State government employees (x) 8.9%

Federal government employees 5.9%

Private sector employees 5.7%

(x) Includes teachers

(xx) For two-thirds of general city departments

(xxx) Some LAPD officers may have more than one work permit

SOURCE: 1997 population survey, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

PHOTO LAPD Officer Chris Cortijo keeps an eye on traffic while moonlighting for a film crew in Hollywood.

Gus Ruelas/Daily News

BOX: MOONLIGHTING (see text)

Daily News