Budget Plans Would Allow More Police : Finances: City manager would add 14 officers and seven civilian positions. The mayor would add 10 more officers.

More police officers would be hired under a $1.7-billion city budget that continues to dip into the city’s meager surplus funds and calls for city departments to cut spending by 1%.

Long Beach’s soaring crime rate and community complaints about police services left a mark on the city manager’s 1990-91 budget proposal, which would add 14 officers and seven civilian positions to the police force.

Mayor Ernie Kell, in a turnabout, is suggesting that the city dip even further into its surplus funds and add 10 officers beyond the 14 recommended by City Manager James Hankla.

Last year, Kell was adamant that reserves not be used for long-term costs, such as police staffing. He persuaded the City Council to instead spend a portion of the 1989 budget surplus on sidewalk repairs, a move for which he has been criticized in this spring’s mayoral race.

But caught in a runoff race amid continued rises in the crime rate, Kell this year wants the council to spend nearly $1 million more than Hankla is recommending for police staffing and is suggesting that two of the new officers be assigned to anti-graffiti duties.

The call for more police comes on top of a June 5 ballot proposal that would create a new property tax levy to expand the 677-member Police Department by 75 officers.

“I want to make it clear that those proposals to increase the number of police officers in no way supplant the need for another 75 officers that we are asking the voters to approve on June 5,” Kell wrote in in his budget letter to the council this week. “Long Beach needs both . . . to put enough officers on the street to fight crime and improve response time to citizen calls.”

The General Fund portion of the budget, which pays for basic city services, would increase 4.8% to $287 million, while the total budget would jump 22% to nearly $1.7 billion. Much of that spending is earmarked for self-supporting departments over which the council has no control, such as the Harbor Department.

Aside from extra police services, Hankla’s spending plan also calls for minor expansions in a variety of other areas. A nurse would be hired for the city jail, several nursing and laboratory positions would be added to the city health department, staffing will be slightly increased for senior citizen programs at city parks, and a $217,000 literacy program would be started by the public library system.

Under two pilot projects, 50 city vehicles would be converted to burn compressed natural gas rather than gasoline, and trash dumpsters would be purchased for automated garbage trucks.

Of the 14 police positions recommended by Hankla, four would be assigned to the airport and would be paid for out of airport funds. The seven civilians would be hired to free the same number of officers from desk duties, allowing them to work on crime investigations. The park ranger program, under which armed park rangers patrol city parks, would also be expanded with the conversion of three part-time positions to full-time slots.

About $240,000 was also added to the budget to continue anti-gang programs.

General Fund income will fall short of expenses by about $4.4 million, forcing Hankla to turn to end-of-the-year reserves to make up the difference. Under Hankla’s plan, all but $1.4 million of the reserve fund would be spent in the coming fiscal year--in addition to the $2.5 million the city must by law hold in reserve.

Kell’s proposal to hire even more police would further whittle the reserve, leaving just $400,000 in surplus funds at the end of the coming fiscal year.

To find money for programs, Hankla is asking all his departments to cut their spending by 1% in the coming year and cut their use of the city vehicle fleet by 10%, for a total savings of about $1.7 million.

A number of city fees would also be increased, including charges for city garbage collection, marina slips, oil production, paramedic ambulance service and public health licenses.

The department cuts will not require any layoffs, and Hankla said the public shouldn’t notice any difference. “There will be no noticeable service cuts as a result of the budget,” Hankla said at a budget briefing for the press Monday.

“If this was a perfect world and our crime rate was going down and not up, I’d probably like to be sitting on about a $9-million reserve,” Hankla said.

Reductions in federal revenue sharing and drops in the city’s once-bountiful oil income have taken their toll on the city’s budget, which is also hurt by a relatively small sales tax base.

Glancing quickly at the budget, council members said they generally supported the push for more police.

“That’s what I favor, rolling up our sleeves and doing what we can to maximize our (police) coverage,” Councilman Warren Harwood said.

“My feeling is that if we had been doing this for the last 10 years, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” said Councilman Les Robbins, saying the city never should have allowed the ranks of the police force to thin to the point they have.

As for the skimpy reserve funds, Robbins said: “It is real risky. But I don’t know what choice we have.”

Councilman Clarence Smith also supported more spending on police, but he lamented the absence of more recreation funding in the budget. “I think it’s going to cost us more money if we continue to deny young people the chance to be involved in creative activities.”