Job Freeze Proposed to Fund Crime Fight

Spurned by voters in recent attempts to hire more police officers, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates joined two City Council members Friday in backing a new plan to freeze nearly 1,000 city job vacancies and use the estimated $10-million savings to help combat street crime.

Under the plan introduced by Councilman Ernani Bernardi, the money saved would be used to pay for overtime for as many as 300 police officers.

By not filling certain jobs over the next six months, the city administrative office estimates, a salary savings of nearly $10 million would be realized and could be placed in a special fund from which the LAPD could receive $1.5 million a month.

The proposal would require an immediate hiring freeze on 958 vacant jobs--in city departments ranging from the Bureau of Sanitation to the Library Department.

Councilman Joel Wachs joined Bernardi and Gates in supporting the plan.

“We’ve tried to get more police on the ballot and you know what’s happened,” Bernardi said at a City Hall news conference. “But here we can have money and have it today, and we can have the (officers) on the street.”

Over the last several years, city voters have rejected ballot measures that would have raised taxes to pay for additional police officers. At the news conference, Gates said that voters would likely reject similar efforts in the future because they are convinced that there is money in the city budget to pay for police.

In supporting the proposal, Gates said his department already owes for more than 1 million hours in overtime--or $35 million--to officers who have been working extra time with little compensation. The amount is not payable all at once, and often officers do not take their overtime due until they retire.

To begin paying for extra-duty hours immediately would be a “first step” toward easing that problem, he said. The Bernardi plan, Gates added, also would enable more officers to patrol high-crime areas.

‘Have a Critical Problem’

“Clearly, uniformed officers would receive most of this money,” Gates said, adding: “I hate to do it on the backs of other general managers. But we do have a critical problem and if this motion does pass, we will put this overtime money to very, very good use.”

As part of the Bernardi proposal, the money would be spent on special task forces aimed at curbing drug sales, prostitution, burglaries and violent crime. And Gates would be required to report to the City Council on a regular basis during a six-month trial period.

The task force plan is patterned after similar efforts in Bernardi’s San Fernando Valley district where the councilman took $45,000 from his own office budget to pay for three months of police overtime--and saw the burglary rate in local neighborhoods drop dramatically.

“I think there’s a great sense of urgency in this measure,” said Wachs, who also represents communities in the San Fernando Valley. “I think the magnitude of street crime in this city is the worst in recent memory. I think with alarming frequency you’re finding blocks and entire neighborhoods literally being taken over by drug pushers, pimps, prostitutes and other criminal elements.”

Manpower Lag

Gates denied that the additional overtime could lead to added stress and less efficiency on the part of police officers and said the proposal could help the department deal with its shortage of personnel. Although his department has an authorized strength of 7,100 officers, Gates said the LAPD is operating with only 6,900 officers because of departures and a delay in hiring replacements.

Presently, officers can accumulate up to 500 hours of overtime before the department can require them to take some time off. According to a survey by the Los Angeles Police Protective League--the police union--only 8% of the 6,800 officers ranked lieutenant and below worked more than 19 hours of overtime a month.

League President George Aliano said he favors the Bernardi proposal because it would make a dent in the overtime problem and would give officers the option of working overtime with city money available to them. He also said that he agrees with Gates that the stress on police officers is not likely to increase, above what they already endure, because of any added overtime.