EDITORIAL CONTRACT KILLING IT'S TIME FOR THE CITY TO UPEND TAINTED PROCESS.

THE audit of contracting processes at the city's Information Technology Agency, released Tuesday by City Controller Laura Chick, wasn't a surprise to anyone who observes City Hall.

Chick has been going department by department, examining how various city agencies award hundreds of million of dollars in public funds, and finding problem after problem - from suspected ``pay-to-play'' contracting at the proprietary departments to wasteful practices. The ITA audit was just one more confirmation that the city's contracting process, if not flat-out corrupt, at least invites abuse, misuse and waste.

It's high time for the municipal contracting process to be turned inside out and redone.

In the next three weeks, Chick expects to release a ``master report'' summing up the findings from all of the contracting audits and highlighting what she calls ``the absolutely doofus way the city does contracts.''

The idea is to provide one overall document and present it to the City Council and mayor to muster the political will needed to change the process before more public money is wasted.

Chick denies that the timing of the master report - to come before the May 17 mayoral election - is political. Maybe so, maybe not. Chick has publicly endorsed Mayor James Hahn's rival, Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa.

But why shouldn't this issue be politicized?

Isn't the ideal time to examine how City Hall works under the leadership of the current mayor before voters have to decide whether to let him have another four years? And clearly, this is one area in which City Hall is not working to the benefit of the public.

It's politics that have corrupted the city's contracting purposes to the point that the Los Angeles district attorney and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are probing the contracting process in the city's proprietary departments - Airport, Harbor and Water and Power.

And it's only politics that will finally push city leaders to change the currently dishonest and tainted system of awarding contracts into something honest. That's what the voters and taxpayers deserve.