COUNTY TRAVEL RIP-OFF EMPLOYEES SPENDING $3 MILLION A YEAR ON PRICEY AIRLINE TICKETS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Los Angeles County employees rack up more than $3 million annually in unsupervised travel expenses, paying as much as five times the going rate for airline tickets, records show.

Alarmed at the growing bills, county supervisors recently raised concerns about the costs and called on the Auditor-Controller's Office to find out why the county is paying so much.

The supervisors also are looking for another travel company and ordered a report on how much travel expenses cost the county, how often employees are overcharged and which departments refuse cost-saving alternatives.

The charges stem from an exclusive five-year contract between the county and American Express One travel service that expired 18 months ago but continues to be renewed monthly. A recent survey found that 40 percent of 170 county employees believe they could get lower fares by calling an airline directly.

``The county is being ripped off by this contract,'' Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. ``There has never been a time when I've gone through county travel that the cost is not twice or three times as much, but four or five times as expensive as I can get from my own travel agent.

``Why does a ticket to Washington, D.C., cost me $1,800 when I can go to my own travel agent and be charged $400? I think they are ripping us off because we are a deep pocket.''

Christine Levite, vice-president of communications at American Express One, said the company is confident it is offering the lowest price available for the preferences requested by county travelers.

``By that, I mean we are having a conversation with the traveler or sometimes their assistant in which we talk about where they want to go, how do they want to get there and how flexible they want to be in booking the reservation. The refundability of an airline ticket significantly impacts the cost.

``The painful truth of the airline industry is it has a highly computerized pricing system in which an air fare on a particular flight for a particular seat changes on a minute-by-minute basis. So booking an airline ticket has really become a battle of one computer against another.''

Often, the county's computers appear to be losing.

On April 4, 2000, a supervisor's chief of staff purchased an American Airlines coach ticket for $2,111 for a round-trip flight to Washington, D.C., staying from Sunday, April 30 to Thursday, May 4, according to county records.

On April 25, 2000, a supervisor's deputy purchased a United Airlines coach ticket for $2,109 for a round-trip flight to Washington, D.C., staying from Monday, May 1, to Thursday, May 4, records show.

Travel agents in Los Angeles and Glendale said Friday they could have booked the same flights for one-fifth the cost.

There are cheaper tickets

``Sure, it can be done cheaper,'' said Ziggy Kubalski, manager of Modern Travel Service in Glendale. ``I can do it for $400.''

The supervisors and their staffs regularly fly to conferences and meetings around the country, spending $41,813 as of Dec. 30 this fiscal year, $76,417 in 1999-00, $108,351 in 1998-99 and $88,287 in 1997-98, county records show.

Most of the flights are to Sacramento and Washington to meet with lawmakers, but some are to conferences in New York City, St. Louis, Mo., Portland, Ore., Scottsdale, Ariz., and other locations where they pay up to $185 a night for hotel rooms, according to board office expense records since 1997.

Using campaign funds, the supervisors have flown to Israel, Germany, Brazil, Switzerland, France and China on various government-related missions since 1997, according to campaign financial reports on file with the county Registrar-Recorder's Office.

Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said he's glad the county is looking into finding another company to handle its travel in an effort to save taxpayers money.

``But this begs the larger question of why county officials are traveling so much in an era of telephones, fax machines and the Internet,'' he said. ``The question isn't that they are spending $2,000 to go to Washington, D.C., rather than $500, but why do they need to spend $500?

``A conference in Palm Springs sounds to most people like a golfing vacation. Retired people tell me they didn't conduct business this way. People don't understand the lavish lifestyles public officials treat themselves to under the guise of work.''

Until 1995, the county contracted with Thomas Cook Travel to handle its travel needs. In December 1995, Thomas Cook merged with American Express Travel Management Services.

The county's agreement with American Express expired in August 1999 and has been on a month-to-month basis since. In June, Auditor-Controller Tyler McCauley recommended that the supervisors vote to extend the agreement with American Express One for three years, with an option to extend the contract an additional two years.

Information sought

In July, the board asked for more information regarding the contract and the possibility of using the Internet to get cheaper prices.

Assistant Auditor-Controller Maria Oms said about 80 percent of the county's travel needs are handled by American Express One. The county spends about $3 million a year for roughly 600 tickets, including about 45 to 50 for employees who cannot buy tickets in advance.

The contract with American Express One provides all means of transportation for official county business, including hotels and car rentals reservations, ticketing, billing and other services.

About 45 percent to 50 percent of the county's contract with American Express One also involves the transportation of children, prisoners, patients and crime witnesses and victims.

In a report to the Board of Supervisors in September, McCauley said cheaper travel options - which some employees are using now - include the use of discount airlines, Internet tickets and travel consolidator services that provide last-minute travel bargains.

In October, the board asked McCauley to conduct a survey of employees who travel, finding that nearly 75 percent of 170 employees believe American Express One provides good or excellent service, but 40 percent believed they were seldom or never offered travel alternatives and believed they could get lower fares by calling the airline directly.

On Tuesday, the board decided to postpone a motion to renew the contract with American Express, asking its staff to talk to private businesses to find out what they pay and report on how much the county is paying for travel over and above the $3 million it pays to American Express One.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said he has asked the county in the past to have other travel agencies bid on the contract, but other agencies did not offer bids.

``I'm urging we find out why other travel agencies are not submitting bids to our proposal,'' he said. ``I don't feel the chief administrative officer has done a credible job in bringing a contract before the board that will save taxpayers money.''

Supervisor Don Knabe said American Express One has agreed to provide better training to make sure county employees know other travel options are available.

``In some cases, given the opportunity, you can find better deals on travel,'' Knabe said. ``My concern is, are we getting a fair shake or are we a captive audience?''

Yaroslavsky said he wants to see the situation straightened out before the board, staff and county department heads make their annual trip in May to visit lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

``I guarantee you every one of these tickets is going to cost well over $1,000 or $1,500,'' he said. ``That's per ticket, per staff person, per supervisor, per department head. You start multiplying the difference per ticket with the number of people we take to Washington each year and you're talking real money.''