Fiscal Storm That May Come Needs to Be Prepared for Now

Before too long Los Angeles may have a crisis in vital services on its hands. There may not be enough cops or firefighters or garbage collectors to go around.

The crisis, at least as far as the Police Department is concerned, has been blunted by an adroit fix by the City Council, which has frozen the Los Angeles Police Department’s authorized strength at 8,332 officers, down from its current authorized level of 8,400 officers. For the time being then, the LAPD is spared the emergency citywide hiring freeze announced by Mayor Tom Bradley in response to declining tax revenues. But all other city services, including the fire and sanitation departments, must carry on in the face of the seven-month free fall in personnel until the freeze expires in June.

The police compromise and the more stringent, citywide freeze are only temporary fixes. Los Angeles needs more cops, not fewer, more firefighters, more books in its libraries, and more equipment and city-sponsored programs in its parks. Most important, it needs to find a way out of its increasingly precarious hand-to-mouth fiscal existence.

THE PROBLEM: The city’s projected budget deficit is $20 million this fiscal year and in the range of $120-million to-$150 million over the next 18 months. The city’s major sources of revenue are closely tied to real estate and business transactions. Because of the economy’s anemic performance, revenue collections are far lower than expected and no end to the trouble is in sight. The city administrative officer, Keith Comrie, has put a series of measures on the table to eliminate the anticipated deficit, and none of the options involve raising taxes, a step for which there is little if any political enthusiasm in the city.

Before long, however, the options may narrow, and the issue of additional cuts on police, fire and sanitation will be raised. This is because these vital services account for 65% of the general fund budget.

Under these circumstances, it would be helpful, indeed, if the Los Angeles Police Department were a bloated, overmanned police bureaucracy with a lot of time on its hands and only a modicum of serious crime problems to cope with. Unfortunately, as the recent Times series on the Los Angeles criminal justice system dramatically revealed, this is not the case at all. The city is snowed under with an extraordinary array and quantity of crime, and it is under-policed even at the authorized 8,400 level. Washington, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, Miami and even Dallas have more police officers per 1,000 population than Los Angeles, although the number of crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in the greater Los Angeles area is lower than that in the New York City, Miami or Dallas metropolitan regions. What this city needs now is not fewer cops, or even the same level of policing, but more cops. It is also true that in the area of criminal justice, we need more jail space, more probation officers, more judges, more drug rehab and prevention programs--more of everything. And clearly more police.

THE SOLUTION: At the moment the city and the police seem content with the managed general freeze and the temporary artful dodging of any freeze on cops. Other city services are scrambling to make do with fewer people and dollars. But if the economy doesn’t improve, before long the budget-cutter’s ax will fall again--and next time it will cut deeper.

The time to prepare for that possibility is now. Local business and policy community leaders need to come together and form a commission, perhaps organized by the mayor, to prepare, identify and endorse a set of realistic options to raise more money and cut costs. All ideas--old and new--should be on the table, including the leasing or selling of unoccupied city land; some selective new taxes, and a reassessment of how the city might staff its departments. There might, for example, be opportunities for public-private partnerships in the provision of some services, expanded use of volunteers in others and the use of non-city employees in still others.

This special commission should look at what is happening in New York City to see if there are some lessons there for Los Angeles. Last month, for example, that city, in the midst of an even more severe economic crisis than the one we face, reached agreement on a plan for hiring thousands of new police officers. The augmentation of the NYPD will be achieved by a whole host of tiny, selective but numerous taxes and the creation of a new city lottery. Support for most aspects of this bold plan, initiated by Mayor David Dinkins, was widespread. People do not want less policing; they want more.

The budget crisis here is not an isolated event. Rather, it is becoming an increasingly common feature of state, federal and local government finance in recent years. As such, we must begin to think about reassessing and redefining state and local budget objectives more generally. The time to do that is now, not when the house is on fire and panic is everywhere. An ounce of preparedness can help keep the budget balanced--and give the police and other vital city services the resources needed to do the job.

WHO GETS WHAT IN L.A. Allocations of general fund revenues for City of Los Angeles: Police, Fire and Sanitation: 65% Public Works: 13.8% Library, Recreation and Parks, Cultural Affairs: 13.6% Mayor, City Council and Administration: 7.6% Source: City of Los Angeles