L.A. Budget Knife Sharpened for Bleak Year : Finance: Police, fire, parks and libraries could be targets. Mayor will release his plan today to deal with shortfall called city’s worst.

Mayor Tom Bradley is prepared to release his proposed city budget today after considering a grim set of economic scenarios, including proposals that could lead to slower police response to emergencies, drastically reduced recreational opportunities and understaffed fire stations.

Those and other disturbing options have been on the table as the mayor struggles to close a projected $180-million deficit that is widely viewed by city officials as the worst ever.

Bradley is scheduled to announce his financial plan as Los Angeles staggers toward the end of its second full year of recession, the longest economic downturn since World War II.

“It’s a very bleak year,” said Anton Calleia, the mayor’s budget director. “There is no way to stay within our current level of services with our reduced revenues.”

Bradley has told business leaders that his financial plan will not raise taxes in the fiscal year beginning July 1. “So that means cut, cut, cut,” Calleia said.

The mayor’s budget has been kept a closely guarded secret, but officials in several city departments said they have been told to expect a continuation of the strict hiring freeze instituted late last year. Bradley also has considered putting off scores of capital projects and dipping into trust funds to close the deficit.

Some budget analysts believe layoffs are inevitable, although Bradley has told department heads that he hopes to avoid them.

A continued hiring freeze would reduce the city’s 33,000-member work force by about 900 next fiscal year, in addition to the 1,200 workers who will go unreplaced this year, said City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie. The freeze would save an estimated $101 million a year, Comrie said.

The City Council can amend the estimated $4-billion budget in a review that will begin this week. Bradley has the power to veto changes, and the council can override vetoes with a two-thirds vote. The budget wrangle is expected to continue until June.

Even the usually sacrosanct Police and Fire departments may find it difficult to avoid cuts, budget analysts said, because they receive 60% of city general funds.

By June, 1993, the hiring freeze would leave the Police Department 665 officers short of its authorized staffing of 8,300, under a budget scenario presented by Chief Daryl F. Gates.

Personnel would be moved out of less urgent support assignments first, but nearly half of the officers lost to attrition would come from patrol, Gates said. That would increase the average time it takes to respond to emergency calls from seven minutes to 10 minutes, his report said.

“It increases the danger,” said Assistant Chief David D. Dotson, who oversees the LAPD budget. “I have no doubt the hazard to the citizens of this city will be increased with fewer police services.”

Gates’ report also said that a continued hiring freeze will lead to reductions in the kind of “community-based” programs that Police Department reformers have hoped to expand:

* Eleven officers from the acclaimed DARE anti-drug program would be moved to other assignments, eliminating 15 public elementary schools and an undetermined number of private schools from the counseling sessions.

* Twenty-one officers would shift from foot patrols at the Pierce Park and Nickerson Gardens housing projects to squad cars--”virtually eliminating the close working relationships being developed between officers and community.”

* All 36 officers in community relations posts would be moved to new assignments, forcing discontinuation of youth law enforcement programs such as Explorers and Deputy Auxiliary Police.

Police Chief-designate Willie L. Williams has signaled his intention to move officers out of desk jobs and onto the streets, saying “street patrol is No. 1.” It is unclear how the budget will affect those plans.

The mayor’s staff has declined to say how far Bradley will let police attrition go. But City Council members said they are prepared to fight any further reduction in service.

“It’s not acceptable, it’s simply not acceptable,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus. “We are already drastically underpoliced. The city would not be safe.”

The Fire Department, about 100 firefighters short of its previous staffing of 2,850, could lose another 120 firefighters in the coming fiscal year, said department spokesman Dean Cathay.

The department has been trying to make up for the attrition by offering employees overtime. “But the more overtime people work, the more likely they are not to be able to perform a task or work the way they should,” Cathay said.

Comrie’s office has asked the department to consider reducing the number of firefighters in the field. Under one scenario, 47 of the department’s 103 stations would be staffed with nine firefighters instead of 10.

Another “very distasteful” option presented by Fire Chief Donald O. Manning would cut staffing in half at 13 stations.

The department last year imposed “rolling brownouts,” reducing staffing at up to 13 stations at a time because of budget shortfalls. Manning said this remains the “most equitable” way to spread cuts throughout the city, but that even this method amounts to “playing Russian roulette.”

Such painful choices evoke memories of the post-Proposition 13 days of the late 1970s, city officials said. But the situation is more precarious now because a substantial state budget surplus cannot be used to bail out the city as it did then, Comrie said.

Economic relief remains uncertain, as well. The national recession may begin to wane by summer, but Los Angeles is expected to lag behind because of layoffs in the defense industry, a slump in commercial construction and the flight of some businesses out of state, said Lynn Reaser, chief economist for First Interstate Bancorp.

City officials are projecting no upturn until 1993, said Comrie, who has projected a drop-off in tax revenue of $50 million in the coming fiscal year.

When added to departmental cost increases of about $140 million, the shortfall projected in January reached $190 million. The deficit has since been estimated at closer to $180 million, Comrie said.

Bradley has made it clear that he wants to avoid raising taxes on residents and businesses.

“He led us to believe that in this economic climate he did not intend to raise fees or taxes. Period,” said Don McIntyre, president of the Central City Assn., an alliance of powerful downtown corporations, developers and professionals.

The timing of the mayoral election, just a year off, may also dampen enthusiasm for tax increases on the City Council, where several members are weighing a run for the city’s top job, officials said.

That means cuts in services typically cherished by residents, officials said.

Department of Public Works crews might reduce tree trimming from once every 10 years to once in 17 years, Comrie said.

The Recreation and Parks Department stands to lose 55 more employees next year because of attrition, in addition to the 162 who have left since July of last year, said Rick Sessinghaus, the department’s budget officer.

That would drop staffing below 2,000, Sessinghaus said, and might force the closure of 14 seasonal swimming pools, reduction of hours at 129 recreation centers from an average of 70 hours a week to about 55 hours and cuts of about 15 hours a week at 25 senior citizen centers.

Park maintenance could be slashed, with grass cut every two weeks instead of weekly, and restrooms cleaned every other day, instead of daily, Sessinghaus said.

“It is the most drastic thing we have taken on in recent years, certainly,” he said.

Assistant City Librarian Tom Alford said that continued attrition in that department would disrupt short-staffed branches. “It just means that, if someone gets sick, we can’t open sometimes for an hour or two,” Alford said. “It becomes a big problem.”

With new taxes unlikely, the mayor was said to be considering other revenue sources:

An $84.6-million parking meter trust fund. The money is normally reserved for maintaining meters, refurbishing parking lots and building new parking structures. But Bradley could take the money outright or borrow some, sources said.

* The independent Airport and Harbor departments, which have remained relatively flush during the recession, with more than $100 million in net income between them. They have traditionally held the funds for their own use.

Now each has been asked to study the question of sharing with the general fund. Department of Airports officials said in January that a preliminary review revealed “substantial hurdles” in sharing the money, including City Charter provisions and federal laws. Availability of the Harbor Department money is expected to be revealed in the mayor’s budget.

* The Community Redevelopment Agency. Budget analysts say the agency could pick up some of the city’s expenses, such as payments to expand the Convention Center and refurbish the Central Library. The payment on the Convention Center will reach $12 million next year.

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, the influential chairman of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, supports the use of money from the Redevelopment Agency.

But he said he will oppose any plan to spend money from the parking meter fund or other trust funds. “If you use that money this year, then where are you going to go next year for an encore” to support the same level of service, Yaroslavsky said. “It amounts to deficit spending.”

Budget negotiations will be complicated by the fact that contracts for nearly all city employees expire at the end of June.

City officials have made it clear that they do not think there is enough money to grant even small pay increases.

Some union leaders said they understand the budget crisis and may be able to live without raises.

“Our priorities have to do with maintaining jobs and maintaining benefit levels and maintaining pay rates,” said John Wyrough, director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents about 7,000 city employees. “And if there is no pay increase, we want that spread over all levels of employment.”