Police to Get Bigger Slice of Budget in Inglewood

This year’s Inglewood budget proposes increased spending and a reorganization of the police and code enforcement departments to mount an assault on crime and blight.

City Manager Paul Eckles submitted to the City Council this week a proposed 1988-89 budget of $95,774,545--up 7.2% from last year’s budget of $89,362,155--encompassing General Fund, Housing Authority, Redevelopment Agency and special fund monies. The General Fund budget is $42,798,777, up from last year’s $38,510,015.

The greatest increase in the budget depends on the fate of a proposed $1.4-million police benefit assessment district, which would finance a 20-officer anti-crime task force in the 187-officer Police Department.

Persistent Gang Problems

Reported crime has dropped 30% in the city in the past six years, but drug and gang problems persist. The council will act on the proposed parcel tax after a public hearing June 21.

The budget also calls for creation of a parks and code enforcement department that would provide park and street maintenance, as well as combat blight by consolidating city code enforcement services now spread among the police and other departments.

“We want to keep Inglewood looking like the solid middle-class community that it is,” Eckles said. “We didn’t have a logical place for code enforcement in many areas. The same department that fights armed robbery shouldn’t have to worry about checking ice cream trucks for licenses.”

Last year’s austerity budget imposed a freeze wherever possible on hiring and non-vital expenditures such as equipment replacement. As a result, this year’s general fund begins with an unusually large balance of $2.6 million, which will help cover expected inflationary increases of 3% to 5%, officials said. Some larger expenditures include $375,000 for a new civic center energy conservation system, $160,000 for a new City Hall sprinkler system and a $700,000 increase on equipment spending.

Apart from the proposed police assessment district, the budget calls for increases of about 3% in refuse, sewer and water fees. It also reworks a commercial parking tax to raise revenues and projects that stepped-up enforcement of city codes will produce additional revenues to balance the budget.

The Police Department accounts for almost half the general fund budget, at $19,986,177. As Eckles noted, this is the only area of city government that has received a consistently increasing share of city resources, adding 62 positions in the past eight years.

30% Drop in Reported Crime

Overall, reported crime has dropped about 30% in Inglewood since 1981, according to state Office of Criminal Justice Planning statistics. Robberies fell from 1,569 in 1981 to 973 in 1987; burglaries fell from 3,312 to 1,908 during the same period.

“I don’t like to write a budget message that places emphasis on crime when we’ve made extraordinary progress against crime,” Eckles said. “We’re going to continue to attack this problem. The statistics speak for themselves.”

However, Inglewood has not been immune from the drug dealing and violence by street gangs that is plaguing urban Southern California, as evidenced by rising drug arrests and the persistence of some violent crimes in the city.

Residents’ complaints about gang and drug activity have spurred City Council members to call for more police officers, resulting in a study of police deployment by PAS, a Virginia consulting firm, and the proposal for the benefit assessment district.

City officials revamped the benefit assessment proposal last month so homeowners would feel less of the burden than owners of large residential and commercial properties. The measure would cost a single-family property owner who lives in Inglewood about $45 a year; landlords of single-family homes who live outside the city would pay $53; for multiple-unit dwellings a base rate of $53 per unit would be applied, decreasing as the number of units increases; the assessment for non-residential property would be based on parcel frontage.

There has not been strong opposition to the proposal at public meetings during the past months. But Eckles said there is no guarantee the council will pass the measure, which will face its most important test at the June 21 public hearing.

Regardless of whether the assessment passes, the proposed budget also calls for a separate $400,000 increase for new civilian police positions and equipment as part of a reorganization designed to put more officers on the street. Enacting fundamental changes proposed by the consultant, city officials plan to eliminate the Office of Special Operations that includes the Metro plainclothes tactical unit, Gang Intelligence, Canine, Transit Safety and Narcotics units. Metro, Transit and Canine officers would be shifted to the patrol bureau; drug and gang detectives would move to the investigations bureau.

Those transfers follow PAS recommendations to streamline administrative and investigative positions and redirect the efforts of narcotics detectives into long-term investigation aimed at the sources of drug supply, Eckles said.

Patrol officers and task force operations would assume more responsibility for fighting street level drug activity.

The “crime suppression” team paid for by the benefit assessment would provide a permanent version of anti-gang and drug task forces that have operated periodically with success, while the addition of 13 transferred patrol officers would double the number of patrol units on the street during busy periods. The department also will add personnel to community service, crime analysis, jail and communications areas as recommended by PAS.

To increase efficiency, the city manager has proposed moving parking enforcement, traffic control and city building security duties out of the Police Department and into a newly created department of parks and code enforcement.

This department would consolidate services performed by a range of departments in order for the city to “blitz” problems ranging from unlicensed street businesses to graffiti to run-down properties, all of which contribute to neighborhood blight, Eckles said. It would oversee such areas as street, park and property maintenance, graffiti abatement and control of street vendors now handled by police, housing, engineering and the Parks and Recreation Department.

The new department would make better use of the city’s civilian traffic and parking employees by training them to work in other code enforcement areas during slow periods at the Forum and Hollywood Park race track, Eckles said.

Some revenue increases in the proposed budget are based on projections that more aggressive code enforcement will raise money. For example, stepped-up collection of transient occupancy taxes is expected to raise $1,365,000, up $345,000, and parking fine revenues are expected to go up by $350,000 to $1,567,700.

Other increases would include a commercial parking tax charging 5% of the parking charge, rather than the current 15% charge with a 15-cent limit, for projected revenues of $320,000, up $100,000 from last year. Refuse collection, sewer and water fees are all slated to go up about 3%.