L.A. Foot Patrols: A Clash Over Funding : Police: Yaroslavsky and chief exchange angry words over how overtime pay should be used.

Prompting a showdown with Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, the City Council on Friday directed the Los Angeles Police Department to spend $407,000 in overtime funds to continue a politically popular foot patrol program through the end of June.

The council’s 12-0 vote drew a caustic reaction from Gates, who insisted at an afternoon press conference that the department’s remaining $4.8 million in overtime funds are targeted for other purposes.

“I don’t have the money. I’ve said that over and over again,” Gates told reporters. “I will deploy the police in this city, and I will deploy them according to what I have in the way of funds. Some of the foot beats will come off. There are some we think are important enough to keep, but most of them will come off.”

Gates refused to provide details about which patrols would end on what dates.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who sponsored the motion, acknowledged Friday that Gates does have final discretion on how to use his overtime funds, which total $20.4 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30. But the Westside councilman added that he had hoped Gates would not force the issue, particularly at a time when the council, faced with looming long-term financial woes, is about to begin final deliberations on the city budget for the 1990-1991 fiscal year.

“The chief should understand that there is a fiscal crisis that the city is facing and we’re trying to do the best we can with the funds we have available,” Yaroslavsky said. “And a good manager, a good manager of any department should be able to find a way to manage a $500,000 problem, especially when they have a half-a-billion-dollar budget.”

Apprised of the latter comment, Gates bristled. “I can manage anything they give me. Yaroslavsky has a habit of saying dumb things.

“You give me the amount of money you’re going to give me and let me manage it. Don’t have it micromanaged by a City Council that does not have the slightest idea how to run a police department and yet gets into little bitty, itty bitty things.”

Late Friday, Yaroslavsky responded: “Daryl has a habit of spouting off when he’s angry and I would just chalk this up to another irreverent eruption. I don’t think that today’s eruption should have long-term policy implications because the only one who will lose in that is the public.”

“However, I do feel there’s a directive by the City Council,” he added, “and I’d hope the chief would reconsider and avoid further expenditure of energy on this.”

The foot patrol program, initiated last September, has proven popular with politicians and police, but financing has been another matter. With the council having been reluctant to fund the program for a full year, police officials had already appeared before the council once to seek additional monies.

The program also faces a particularly tough road in winning financing for the 1990-91 year. The budget package recommended thus far both by Mayor Tom Bradley and the council’s Budget and Finance Committee includes only $12.2 million for police overtime, a figure that police officials say would make it impossible to continue the program after June 30.

Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles) has filed a bill in Sacramento to provide $3 million of state money from federal grants for the foot patrols. But it has not yet picked up a sponsor in the state Senate and its fate is uncertain.

The city’s foot patrol program has been lauded by police as having reduced violent crime in many of 13 “hot spots” from South-Central Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, where officers have been deployed on an overtime basis since September. According to a police study, only three of 17 homicides in the targeted neighborhoods occurred while foot patrol officers were present.

However, the program’s level of success is hardly clear-cut, city administrators testified Friday. “The statistics don’t show that,” said Chief Administrative Officer Keith Comrie. “There are too many variables in police work.”

The council’s vote, which also allocated $93,000 in general reserve funds to help finance the foot patrols, came after the council narrowly rejected a motion that would have allocated the entire $500,000 from the city’s general reserve fund. That measure failed by one vote, 7 to 5, with Yaroslavsky and council members Richard Alatorre, Michael Woo, Marvin Braude and Gloria Molina voting against it.