EDITORIAL BEST AND BRIGHTEST? CITY GETS A POOR RETURN ON ITS WORK-FORCE INVESTMENT.

THERE'S a good reason, city officials tell us, why Los Angeles has the highest-paid municipal employees in the country. It's so we can hire the best and the brightest, top-flight workers who give taxpayers their money's worth in superior public services -- then turn around and sue us.

Well, no, city leaders don't actually own up to that last part. They lay it on thick about how we're getting the best public employees that money can buy, but they don't much like to talk about how we're also getting the costliest public-employee lawsuits money can settle.

But we are. Tennie Pierce's multimillion-dollar case is just the tip of the dog chow.

In the past three years, the number of claims of harassment or a hostile work environment in city government has more than doubled, from 41 in 2004 to 88 last year. And since fiscal year 2004, lawsuits and other employee-related claims have cost the city nearly $30 million.

Part of the problem is that City Hall has developed a reputation as an easy mark. Lawyers know that if they can cobble together a plausible-sounding case, they're likely to get a swift settlement.

But that's only part of the problem. An arguably bigger part is the employees themselves.

Why are the ``best and the brightest,'' if that is whom we're hiring, so prone to harassing one another and making each other's work environment miserable?

And why are those charged with overseeing city workers -- presumably the best and the brightest among the best and the brightest -- doing such a poor job of managing their workplaces?

Or is it just that a good many city workers are opportunistic, and like to file frivolous lawsuits against the very taxpayers who provide their livelihood? If that's the case, what does this say about the character of all too many of those we pay so handsomely?

It's not just the salaries. Los Angeles municipal employees also get exorbitant pension and health benefits that are simply unimaginable in the private sector. They are all but guaranteed lifelong job security. And many get to work three- or four-day workweeks.

All of which would be fine if, in fact, we did get superior public services in return for our investment. But no one can claim with a straight face that there's anything superior about L.A. city government -- especially when we need to spend millions of dollars a year dealing with in-house harassment claims.

Maybe the problem is that after decades of being too generous to city workers -- and seldom, if ever, firing the bad apples in the bunch -- the best and the brightest have become the pampered and the indulged.

Whatever the case, we're either spending too much on our municipal work force, not demanding enough in return, or both.