EDITORIAL PARTING SHOT.

BEFORE stepping down after 16 years as city controller, Rick Tuttle took one last shot at waste at City Hall.

At a farewell party for the city's outgoing politicians thrown by the L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau, Tuttle remarked that public money shouldn't be spent on a bash for insiders.

After all, the responsibility of the Convention and Visitors Bureau is to bring tourists and revenue to L.A. - not to fete the city's ruling class.

And just in case its members forgot, Tuttle reminded the City Council that it passed a ban on the use of public funds for such events back in 1984.

Not that the law - or bluster from the controller - has ever stopped the big spenders in city government.

Occasional self-serving festivities are the least of the Convention and Visitors Bureau's offenses.

The bureau collects $17 million in subsidies a year to run the deficit- plagued L.A. Convention Center.

Rather than taking advantage of the bureau's largesse, city officials should try to make the Convention Center solvent - or else pull the plug.

And they certainly should think twice before pouring another $75 million worth of subsidies into plans for Staples Center expansion.

There's a boondoggle for Tuttle's successor, Laura Chick, to look into. An audit of just how much the Convention Center has cost taxpayers and how extraordinarily profitable Staples Center is ought to kill the idea of any more taxpayer giveaways.