Police, Fire Forces Cut in Mayor’s Budget Plan : City Hall: $3.8-billion proposal continues hiring freeze. Yaroslavsky says council will not tolerate sharp cutbacks.

Facing the city’s “bleakest financial picture in memory,” Mayor Tom Bradley on Monday presented a proposed $3.8-billion budget that would cut sharply into police and fire forces--potentially leading to increases in emergency response time.

Bradley said he had no choice but to cut the public safety departments as Los Angeles remains mired in the longest recession since World War II, leaving the city treasury nearly $183 million short of the amount needed to maintain services.

The mayor said the cuts, based on continuing the “hard” hiring freeze begun last year, are preferable to raising taxes or laying off workers. The city’s work force of 34,700 is expected to lose more than 2,100 employees through attrition in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Under Bradley’s proposal, Los Angeles residents would see a broad range of services canceled or reduced substantially: An after-school and weekend recreation program for children would be curtailed, operating hours at 56 community libraries would be reduced to four days a week, 14 seasonal swimming pools would be closed, and trees along streets would be trimmed every 17 years instead of every 10.

Most controversial, though, are the proposed public safety cuts. The Police Department is projected under a $59.3-million cutback to lose 320 officers next year, in addition to the 358 leaving the department this year. That would drop the force from its high of 8,300 about a year ago to 7,654 officers, the budget projects.

The Fire Department would lose 274 employees, most of them firefighters, and be forced to reduce staffing substantially at 14 stations, saving an estimated $27.4 million.

“Some would say we should exempt police and fire,” Bradley said. “But we have done that in past years and it puts all the burden on other departments. . . . We will not cripple other services that are a priority.”

But Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, the influential head of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee, said the council would not stand for sharp cuts in emergency services. He said the reduction in police service will be even more severe than earlier predicted because Bradley “eviscerated” a police overtime account, cutting it from $16 million to $2 million. That would effectively take another 315 officers off the street, Yaroslavsky said.

“That cannot stand and that will not fly with the City Council in a city that is ravaged by crime in every one of its communities,” Yaroslavsky said.

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

In a report last month to the Police Commission, Chief Daryl F. Gates said the continued hiring freeze proposed by the mayor would increase response time to emergency calls from seven to 10 minutes.

The mayor said he believes increases in response time can be avoided, and a maximum of officers kept on the street, by reassigning police from desk jobs to the field. A March audit by the city administrative officer suggested that such a move could put 400 officers on the street.

“I am convinced we can deal with it by redeployment,” Bradley said. “I am not concerned about it.”

In his budget message, Bradley said: “I deplore the reduction in our public safety staffing.” But, he added: “Take some consolation in the knowledge that we were successful during the 1980s in increasing our police force from 6,900 to 8,400 officers.”

Bradley said he had not discussed the proposed budget cut with Police Chief-designate Willie L. Williams.

Williams declined to comment, but he suggested after being selected last week to replace Gates that he would bring to Los Angeles a program he initiated in Philadelphia to remove officers from “soft jobs” and put them into the field.

The painful choices became necessary, city budget analysts said, because expenses such as workers’ compensation, employee health insurance and pensions have continued to drive up costs, while sales taxes, business taxes and other revenues have sagged during the recession.

The city also suffered a setback when the courts ruled that it would have to refund more than $200 million in business license taxes improperly imposed on savings and loan institutions. That will cost the city $7 million in fiscal 1992-93 and about $30 million in succeeding years, said City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie.

Bradley said his budget is cautious in predicting an upturn. “It would be misleading to tell all of you that this recession would be over soon,” Bradley told reporters at a news conference.

The cuts in police service, which could ripple across the entire department, promise to stir the most controversy. The reductions would reduce 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 counseling sessions at 15 public elementary schools and an undetermined number of private schools.

* Twenty-one officers would shift from foot patrols at the Pierce Park and Nickerson Gardens housing projects to squad cars. This would “virtually eliminate the close working relationships being developed between officers and community,” said a report by Gates, who declined comment Monday.

* 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.

* Twenty-nine officers would be removed from the Gang Information Section, reducing surveillance and investigations, and 46 narcotics officers would be cut.

“I have great concerns with underfunding of the Police Department,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus. “On the one hand, we talk about community-based policing and on the other hand we talk about reducing proactive crime support. It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Fire Department would suffer potentially “devastating” reductions in service in losing 274 of its 3,603 employees, said Chief Donald O. Manning.

Fourteen of the city’s 104 fire stations--from downtown and Woodland Hills to Wilmington and Pacific Palisades--would lose about half of their complement of 10 firefighters each. That would effectively shut down one or two engines in each, leaving one or two engine companies in operation.

“It’s a lot like we are going to be trying to paint a wall and we won’t have enough paint,” Manning said. “We are now going to have a lot of bare spots.”

A similar, temporary reduction last year slowed response time from about four minutes a call to about five minutes, said department spokesman Dean Cathey.

“It will take us longer to arrive on the scene,” Cathey said. “Fires can grow larger, some tasks can go undone, such as rescues. In medical incidents, there is a high potential people are going to suffer longer because it takes us longer to get there.”

In other departments:

* $3.5 million in funding for a children’s recreation program, run by the Los Angeles Unified School District, would be eliminated. Without the city’s money, about 8,700 children would have to be let out of the program at 4:30 each afternoon, instead of 6 p.m.

* Branch libraries in 56 neighborhoods would be kept open an average of four days, or 28 hours, a week, instead of the current average of 40 hours, six or seven days a week. The cut would save $4.7 million.

* Hours would be cut at 112 recreation centers from 70 to 55 hours a week and maintenance would be reduced, including restroom cleanings every other day, instead of daily.

* Fourteen of 53 summer swimming pools would be closed down.

* Hours at 25 senior citizen centers would be cut from 46 hours to 31 hours a week.

* Maintenance of city vehicles would be cut in half, from about once every six months to once a year.

The mayor made few moves to shore up the city’s sagging revenues. Many City Hall officials had predicted that new taxes would be “dead on arrival” in a year before a mayoral election.

Instead, Bradley proposed to take more than $32 million from a trust fund usually saved for maintenance of parking meters and for parking lot construction. He also proposed that the independent Harbor Department, whose budget is usually held separate from the city’s General Fund, contribute $1.7 million to pay for recreation programs in the Harbor area.

Yaroslavsky said he was “outraged” that another independent department, the Community Redevelopment Agency, was not tapped for funds.

Yaroslavsky said he believes that the agency could contribute as much as $30 million a year to help defray city costs.

“CRA money is ripe for the picking because it is replenished every year with new taxes,” Yaroslavsky said. “The CRA is only used to subsidize developers. I don’t know why we would continue to subsidize the developers over the Police Department.”

The mayor’s press spokesman, Bill Chandler, said Bradley would not respond to council members’ criticisms during the budget deliberations.

City leaders have been saying for months that, with contracts for nearly all city employees due to expire at the end of June, raises will be out of the question. But union leaders said they are not ready to concede that point.

“We intend to make a proposal for a wage increase,” said John Wyrough, local director with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents about 7,000 city employees. “We are not satisfied this is final word on the city budget. We are not satisfied there is no money for wage increases.”

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, according to economists who advise the city.

Where the Money Goes

Mayor Tom Bradley has unveiled a proposed $3.9 billion budget for Los Angeles. Here are the city’s anticipated expenditures for the 1992-93 fiscal year:

Community safety: 34.2

Home and community environment: 34.2

* Sewage handling 20.8 cents

* Garbage: 4.6 cents

* Planning and building enforcement: 1.7 cents

* Other: 7.1 cents

Human resources and economic assistance: 2.1

Cultural, education and recreational services: 4.8

General administration: 11.1

Transportation: 13.6

* Street and highway transportation: 7.6

* Traffic control: 4.2

* Other: 1.8 cents

Proposed City Budget

Here are highlights of Mayor Bradley’s proposed budget for 1992-93. Spending figures are compared to those of the previous two years. Last fiscal year’s budget was $3.6 billion, this year’s budget is $3.9 billion and the budget proposed for next year totals $3.8 billion.

DEPARTMENT: Police

LAST YEAR: $557.5 million

THIS YEAR: $578.2 million

NEXT YEAR: $533.2 million

* The number of sworn officers would be reduced through attrition by 358 by July 1, and 320 more positions would remain unfilled by June, 1993. Also, overtime for sworn officers would be reduced by $14 million.

DEPARTMENT: Fire

LAST YEAR: $237.7 million

THIS YEAR: $231.7 million

NEXT YEAR: $232.0 million

* Staffing would be roughly cut in half at 14 of the city’s 104 fire stations. Also, one of the city’s three hazardous materials squads would be placed on standby.

DEPARTMENT: Library

LAST YEAR: $36.8 million

THIS YEAR: $39.8 million

NEXT YEAR: $36.3 million

* Service hours would be cut at 56 community branches from an average of six days a week to an average of four days per week. Regional libraries and the Central Library would continue to be open six days a week.

DEPARTMENT: Recreation-Parks

LAST YEAR: $90.9 million

THIS YEAR: $94.7 million

NEXT YEAR: $88.9 million

* The department would reduce hours of operation from 70 to 55 hours a week at 112 large recreation centers. Planned reconstruction and refurbishment of eight parks would be postponed. Restrooms at 129 recreation centers would be cleaned every other day instead of daily. In addition, 14 swimming pools would close and recreation programming would be reduced at 25 senior citizens centers and 87 other facilities.

DEPARTMENT: Street Maintenance

LAST YEAR: $87.1 million

THIS YEAR: $88.3 million

NEXT YEAR: $84.9 million

* The department would eliminate a $150,000-a-year program of graffiti removal by private contractors on public property; also eliminated would be slurry sealing on roads. It would increase the tree-trimming cycle from once each 10.4 years to 17.3 years, the palm tree trimming cycle from 4.0 to 6.1 years and median island mowing from once every two weeks to once every four to six weeks.

Note: These budget figures do not include pension and health care costs.

Compiled by Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen