Administrative Leave Account May Grow : Torrance: $357,000 is earmarked in fiscal 1992-93 for cash payouts. The city manager defends the management benefits package during a severe budget crunch.

The city of Torrance, facing its bleakest budget in more than a decade, set aside $342,000 this year to cover administrative leaves for 70 top-paid managers.

Moreover, city officials said this week that the proposed budget for fiscal 1992-93, beginning July 1, earmarks $357,000 for similar cash payouts to management employees who earn at least $60,000 a year.

The payouts have drawn fire from employee unions who say the city should not be spending that much for leaves when other city departments have been forced to cut back.

In interviews this week, City Manager LeRoy J. Jackson and Finance Director Mary Giordano said they do not know exactly how much the city spent this year for administrative leaves because the cash payments are not itemized in a separate account.

The new amount not only represents a slight increase over this year’s figure but is also part of a management benefits package that has increased significantly in recent years, records show. And that package has come under fire from the city’s rank-and-file employees because Torrance’s gloomy budget threatens to prevent any pay raises in the coming fiscal year.

Last week, The Times reported that Jackson and other officials preparing the new budget plan continue paying department heads and other top managers an array of perks even as Torrance--by Jackson’s reckoning--faces the worst budget crunch in 14 years.

Those perks include up to 36 days of administrative leave that can be paid out in cash, in addition to merit bonuses, $446-a-month car allowances, longevity pay and reimbursements of up to $1,500 a year for expenses ranging from tuition to purchases of personal computers compatible with the city’s computer system.

The perks, city records show, were either added or enhanced for city administrators in 1987. And by the accounts of some union officials, the perks have increased the total compensation package for top managers by up to 50% in the past five years.

Jackson has steadfastly defended the benefits package, saying it has enabled Torrance to both lure and keep top administrators. He has also maintained that some benefits, such as administrative leave, enable the city to compensate top managers not eligible for overtime. That approach, he said, is preferable to simply raising salaries because the added benefits are not calculated into a manager’s base pay for retirement.

While defending the benefits, however, Jackson has declined repeated requests from The Times for an accounting of the actual amounts paid in administrative leave and merit bonuses to the city’s top managers. Calls to City Atty. Kenneth L. Nelson requesting the information have not been returned.

In the case of administrative leave, Jackson said, it would be “inappropriate” to release the amounts paid to managers because it would reveal their “personal choices” of whether to take cash or time off.

“It is the same as going into someone’s deductions in the credit union or (number of) dependents” for tax purposes, he said.

Similarly, Jackson said it would be inappropriate to release the amount of bonuses paid to specific managers. Doing so, he said, could paint an unflattering portrait of the job performance of those who did not receive large bonuses.

City records show that this fiscal year Torrance paid $29,700 in bonuses to top managers, $26,250 to other managers and $9,650 to members of the city manager’s staff. The bonuses ranged from $500 to $2,700.

A breakdown of the significantly larger cash compensation for administrative leave has not been released.

In recent weeks, perks for the city’s top managers have emerged as an issue in new contract talks between the city and some of the unions representing its 1,400 rank-and-file workers.

While the talks continue, city officials have warned that the coming fiscal year could be austere because the recession has cut into revenues. Torrance’s budget also has been hit by recent multimillion-dollar court settlements and the December discovery that $6.2 million was missing in an investment scandal.

Those factors have led city officials to warn that the city’s proposed 1992-93 budget of $148 million will not allow across-the-board pay raises and will probably force a cut of $300,000 or more from the $3-million budget for overtime.

But negotiators for the city’s unions have argued that those measures are unfair to Torrance’s public employees, particularly if the budget for management perks is actually slightly increased, as proposed.

“It’s a matter of fairness,” said Guido De Rienzo, staff representative of the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “You can’t plead poverty when you are paying (management) people” bonuses and other benefits “and then cutting the overtime budget” for other workers, he said.

The proposed $357,000 for administrative leave, De Rienzo said, would alone be enough to provide a 2% pay increase for the local’s 425 members.

Moreover, he said, the union’s preliminary analysis of the perks suggests that they have increased the total compensation packages for Torrance’s top-paid officials by up to 50% in the past five years.

But developing more precise figures, De Rienzo said, has been difficult because the city has not released the actual figures paid to its managers--a fact that De Rienzo said union officials will continue to challenge.

“I find it rather incredible that the city of Torrance will not release information on how the taxpayers’ money is being spent,” he said. “And I think their needs to be a full accounting of how this money is being spent.”

Patrick Astredo, president of AFSCME’s local office, added: “The bottom line is that we are looking for parity, . . . and we don’t feel that has happened.”

Union officials, Astredo said, intend to press that matter Tuesday night, when the City Council is scheduled to vote on the new budget.