$3.8-Billion Budget OKd by Council : Funding: Majority backs plan to divert money from Community Redevelopment Agency to preserve police and fire services.

A sharply divided Los Angeles City Council on Monday adopted a $3.8-billion budget that includes an unprecedented diversion of funds from the Community Redevelopment Agency to preserve police and fire services targeted for reduction in Mayor Tom Bradley’s budget.

The council voted 8 to 7 to take $48.3 million from the semi-independent redevelopment agency to pay for expanding the downtown Convention Center, refurbishing the Central Library and other projects. Freed from those obligations, the city can maintain its Fire Department staffing and keep 7,900 officers on the Police Department, rather than letting the department slip to 7,654 officers through attrition as had been proposed last month by Bradley.

The council is expected today to forward to the mayor its version of the budget--which also would restore hours at recreation centers, maintain an after-school program that cares for 8,700 children a day and keep open 14 swimming pools that had been slated for closure.

Bradley has five working days to veto any of the council’s changes to his budget. The City Council can then override a veto with a two-thirds vote.

Although council members had been expected to restore the police and fire services, their action took on greater urgency in the aftermath of the riots.

Still, the council’s resolve to bring back the services did not prevent a protracted and emotional debate over where to get the money.

The majority supported closing much of an estimated $183-million budget deficit by diverting redevelopment agency funds. Led by Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, they said that the CRA has primarily benefited wealthy developers and that the money would be better spent maintaining basic services.

“This vote tells you that people are sick and tired of seeing tax increment money siphoned off by the redevelopment agency,” Yaroslavsky said, “just to pay for another office building or a shopping center in Hollywood, or some other special interest.”

If their proposal to divert CRA funds is vetoed by the mayor, several council members said, they are prepared to renew a proposal to have the City Council take over operations of the agency entirely.

Councilman Richard Alatorre and six other council members with redevelopment projects in their districts proposed solving the budget problem by taking $26 million from the redevelopment agency and $25 million from a parking meter trust fund. The parking fund money would be in addition to $32 million that Bradley has proposed taking from the fund.

Alatorre argued that maintaining the CRA budget will help the city recover from recent riots.

“Because of the problems that came about from the riot,” Alatorre said, “these areas that had already had problems have even more problems today.

“This is basically a choice between the urban revitalization of this city versus parking lots,” he added. “When are we going to wake up and learn from this thing that just went on?”

Since issuing his version of the budget April 20, Bradley has changed his position on police and fire reductions. He now says that $25 million should be diverted from the CRA and a total of $57 million from the parking meter fund to prevent decreases in the police and fire forces, which have been gradually declining through attrition.

In a prepared statement, Bradley lashed out at Yaroslavsky and the rest of the council majority for supporting only a $32-million diversion from the parking fund. “Unfortunately, Councilman Yaroslavsky voted to protect his own parking meter funds, sitting idly in a bank account,” Bradley said. “And he voted to cut vital funds needed for riot recovery and economic revitalization.”

The parking funds are collected from meters in small wards throughout the city. Yaroslavsky’s district, with $21 million in parking funds, ranks second in the city in money set aside for parking construction.

Yaroslavsky said he opposed use of the parking money because the funds do not accrue as quickly as CRA funds. He added that the parking money has been promised to business people throughout the city.

“It’s called a trust fund because it is supposed to be just that,” Yaroslavsky said. “If this money is going to be used for other types of uses throughout the city, then the business people would quickly want those parking meters removed.”

The budget approved by the council also would bring back several other accounts and programs that Bradley had proposed for cuts. The restored items include:

* A $14-million account to pay police overtime, enough to keep the equivalent of 315 officers on the street.

* Longer hours at 25 senior citizen centers, 66 urban impact parks and 21 “border-line” recreation centers, near troubled neighborhoods. Operations at more than 100 other recreation centers would still be reduced from 70 to 60 hours a week.

* Forty-hour-a-week service at 56 neighborhood branch libraries. Hours at the downtown Central Library and several larger regional libraries would be cut.

The council also approved a one-year increase in the hotel bed tax from 12 1/2% to 13 1/2%, which would raise an additional $4.5 million. Councilman Michael Woo proposed the change, the only new tax in the budget, saying the money should go to the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau to spruce up the city’s image after the riots.

Other council members agreed to the tax, but said they want further study before agreeing how it is to be spent.