Council Agrees to Forgo Pay Raises : Finances: Bradley, city controller also volunteer to do without increases. Officials say they want to show they will share the pain of Los Angeles’ budget problems.

In another sign of Los Angeles’ deepening financial crisis, the City Council Tuesday agreed to forgo all pay raises in the coming year, a move Mayor Tom Bradley and City Controller Rick Tuttle quickly volunteered to follow.

The pay freezes, approved by a 13-0 vote, were necessary to show that the council will share the pain of a recession-driven budget shortfall that could reach $150-million in 1992, council members said.

The action came as council members approved a measure that would defer merit pay increases next year for about 30 department general managers.

In the coming weeks, the council also will consider proposals to eliminate cost-of-living increases for nearly 40,000 city employees and a series of other emergency actions. The city’s fiscal problems have continued to swell in recent months because of reduced tax collections, despite a hiring freeze that has trimmed some 2,000 workers.

Elected officials cannot “ask (others to take cuts) without doing the same thing ourselves,” said Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores. Flores said by freezing its pay, the council will be in a stronger position to make unpopular spending cuts in the months ahead.

“We should lead by example,” said Councilman Mike Hernandez.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, the author of the one-year pay freeze proposal, said the action was “critical” to the council’s credibility during the budget debate.

The 15 council members each earn $90,680, after receiving a 40% pay hike last year as part of a voter-approved ethics reform package.

Following the council’s lead Tuesday, spokesmen for Bradley and Tuttle said their bosses also will forgo pay increases. Citing an “extremely tight budget,” the mayor, who is paid $117,884 a year, agreed to skip a cost-of-living increase, said his press secretary, Bill Chandler.

Tuttle will stick to his $99,748 salary, said spokesman Tim Lynch. A spokesman for City Atty. James Hahn, now paid $108,816, could not immediately say if his boss would go along with the pay freeze.

Just how much of a pay increase the elected officials will be surrendering is not clear. Their salaries are tied to increases granted Municipal Court judges, and those raises have not yet been calculated for 1992, officials said.

However, Chief Legislative Analyst William McCarley estimated that the freeze on merit increases for all department heads could save $150,000 to $250,000 in the coming year. The highest paid city bureaucrat is Airport General Manager Clifton Moore, who earns $181,000. He was not immediately available for comment.

The freeze on top officials’ pay came one day after Yaroslavsky, chairman of the budget committee, proposed elimination of cost-of-living increases for all city employees and a one-week “blackout” of City Hall between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

During that time, all but essential services would be curbed and thousands of employees would take unpaid leaves. In addition, Yaroslavsky proposed requiring employees to take off one unpaid day per month. They would also lose one paid holiday per year.

The actions would effectively cut employees’ pay by about 6%, Yaroslavsky said.

The proposals would have to be approved by the full council and negotiated with city labor unions.

City labor officials criticized the proposal, saying it was a political move by Yaroslavsky designed to intimidate union negotiators who will be seeking new contracts in the coming year.

While supporting the council pay freeze, Hernandez said the city should be concentrating on cutting non-personnel costs and wringing more dollars out of city land and other assets, rather than proposing actions that will affect employees so drastically.

But Yaroslavsky said the $125-million savings his plan could generate will be needed to wipe out a projected deficit in July, 1992, that is approaching this fiscal year’s $180-million shortfall.