Daily News from New York, New York • 5

5 r-naay, ers call mayors to account Cityprob By BRIAN KATES whim "from a $10,000 carpet for a former mayor's bedroom to the purchase of toilet paper" became a command and was expedited "without required review and approval." The report said that for at least 10 years there has been no Gracie Mansion budget, no individual or agency responsible for managing the landmark mayoral residence and no law that outlines how the mansion should be adminis tered. The astounding result is that "no one knows the total annual cost of operating, maintaining, furnishing and renovating the mansion," the report concluded. "We have not had the kind of control we should have," Dinkins said. "But we do not have the magnitude of abuse" that ocurred under Koch. Koch disclaimed any responsibility.

"I didn't admin ister Gracie Mansion," he said. "I administered the city." The investigation was launched amid the furor created by a Newsweek expose that in the midst of a financial crisis, Dinkins had a city Human Resources Administration carpenter handcraft a headboard at a cost of more than $11,000. In addition to Dinkins' headboard these are a few of Daily News Staff Writer Mayor Dinkins' $11,074 headboard is the small change in a 10-year Gracie Mansion spending spree that has cost taxpayers thousands of dollars through waste and mismanagement In an 80-page report, the city Department of Investigation outlined a litany of spending under former Mayor Ed Koch in which any -vp UMMMii JjpJ Jbj js Tfi in pan ft flings the overblown Gracie Mansion expenses investigators uncovered: $71,603 for constructing and furnishing an attic apartment for former Mayor Ed Koch's chef, Mitchell London, including $17,431 for a custom-made desk and closet London was blamed in the re- port for "numerous work slowdowns" because he "decided he would assert authority beyond the province of the kitchen. London could not be reached for comment fl $61,438 over six years for furnishing and maintaining the mayor's bedroom and study. That includes a $344 headboard for Koch (now gathering dust in a storage room) and a paint job last December in anticipation of the new mayor.

$53,000 for installation of a kitchen barbeque. $6,625 in labor to make oak laptop dinner trays. Since no records were kept no one knows how many trays were made. Investigators found eight, the carpenter (the same one who made Dinkins' headboard) said he may have made 10 to 20. The report recommended a budget for Gracie Mansion, and Dinkins put Deputy Mayor Barbara Fife in charge of approving all spending for the residence "beyond normal wear and tear." Investigators uncovered more than $310,000 in work at the mansion done by HRA personnel many of them diverted from work on city shelters and similar high-priority jobs since 1979.

But the actual cost could be much higher. When HRA workers are assigned to non-HRA projects, the report said, "There may be triple cost to the city: the loss of productivity on HRA-related work; the costs of overtime to compensate for lost productivity and the loss of federal and state reimbursement for the labor, which amounts to 70 of the wages." the shop. Taken to two hospitals, they were said to be in stable OUT-OF-CONTROL car crashed through front window of dry cleaners on Ninth Ave. at 52d St yesterday afternoon, injuring three condition. The accident is being investigated.

OERMA HERBERT DAILY NEWS people. The injured included one person on the sidewalk and two in or's office of facilities management. There were meetings and memos changed hands. City architect Peggy King spent a week preparing drawings (cost $700) and a Human Resources Administration carpenter, Anthony Russo, began working on the headboard, taking him away from work at homeless shelters. Routine reassurance Mrs.

Dinkins repeatedly asked Reese if this was routine procedure. Reese repeatedly told her it was. Dinkins' predecessor, Edward Koch, had his bedroom and study refurbished for $61,438, of which $25,906 was paid for by the Conser vancy. Mrs. Dinkins told investigators she vaguely remembered telling the mayor that a city agency was making the headboard.

But "she said the mayor was too busy and had too many things on his mind to be concerned with the furnishing of the bedroom." Reese never told Joyce Dinkins how much all this would cost and, the report says, "No one ever prepared an estimate of the cost" When Russo finished on Oct 5 he had spent 363 hours on the project at $23.66 an hour. Materials cost another $1,619. That, combined with other city labor, brought the tab to $11,074. wouldn't be a problem. He was wrong.

Four months and $11,074 later, Mayor Dinkins and his wife had their headboard and an embarrassing whiff of scandal. According to a Department of Investigation report Reese initially tried to find a stock headboard and was then turned down by a cabinetmaker. He suggested that if city carpenters would make the headboard, the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, a not-for-profit corporation that raises funds for restoration of the mayor's residence, would pay for it The plan was approved by Stu Tepper, deputy director of the may By BRIAN KATES Daily News Staff Writer It began simply enough. Joyce Dinkins wanted a headboard to go with the king-sized bed she had bought for her Gracie Mansion bedroom. She got the bed in December 1989, and the next summer found a $450 headboard in an old Ethan Allen furniture catalog.

But the company in 1987 had discontinued the item, part of its "Georgian Court Collection." Mrs. Dinkins asked Gracie Mansion curator David Reese if he knew someone who could make a similar headboard. Reese told her that it.