LAPD Pay Lags After Years Among Best in State, Nation : Wages: Officers now rank eighth in California, a Times survey shows. Union to begin job action Monday.

It was not long ago that many Los Angeles police officers liked to describe their department with a litany of bests--a rhapsody that was likely to include best paid.

But after 15 months with no contract and two years without a pay raise, LAPD officers now are more likely to rail about how good everybody else has it.

In reality, there is a bit of truth in both the old and the new images of compensation within the Los Angeles Police Department.

The city’s 7,600 police officers are still paid better than their counterparts in the nation’s other biggest cities, but their compensation has fallen behind that of many police officers elsewhere in California, a Times survey has found.

Beginning patrol officers in Los Angeles make $33,157--at least $2,800 more a year than those in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Houston. But they have slipped to eighth in pay among the 10 largest police departments in California, where some starting officers make up to $10,000 more annually than do Los Angeles police.

In a campaign scheduled to begin Monday, the Police Protective League will escalate efforts to force a pay raise by fraying the nerves of management. Among other things, the union has asked officers to complete their paperwork to “academy standards,” to take their aging squad cars in for required safety inspections, to refine their marksmanship at the police firing range and to crowd courtrooms instead of remaining on call as witnesses.

Backstopping those efforts will be the police union’s own survey, which contends that LAPD officers’ pay now ranks 78th in the state when factors such as incentive pay and retirement payroll deductions are included in the calculations.

But the city’s elected leaders have pleaded poverty, pointing to the current $33-million deficit and a projected $200-million shortfall for next year. They have also countered with their own statistics, citing a study that concludes that Los Angeles spends more per citizen on police service than do all but a handful of U.S. cities.

Hubert Williams, president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, said cities around the nation face such a dilemma--with police officers and city leaders grappling with seemingly irreconcilable financial needs.

Calculating salaries “is a complicated formula. It’s not simple math,” said Williams, who co-chaired the Webster Commission, which investigated the way police and local government handled last year’s riots. “In that regard, neither side is likely to win in salary disputes.”

With serious social and economic problems draining their resources, the nation’s largest cities are particularly hard-pressed to pay for police service, Williams said. Among the six biggest cities in the country, Los Angeles has maintained the best salaries for nearly all ranks through lieutenant.

In Philadelphia, in contrast, pay for incoming police officers recently was slashed by nearly 25% to help balance a city budget that was deep in the red.

Starting officers in Philadelphia now receive $26,010 a year, compared with $32,331 before the reduction--a gap in pay that is closed after four years of employment.

Only Chicago, where minimum pay for sergeants and lieutenants is slightly higher, challenges Los Angeles as the most generous of the nation’s largest police departments.

Even more significant than the pay, according to city officials, is the overall amount spent on police in Los Angeles. The Webster Commission reported that Los Angeles ranks fourth of about 40 U.S. cities in the amount it spends per citizen on police service. At $274 per resident, the city ranked behind only Washington, Las Vegas and Detroit for its per capita police expenditures.

Nearly $1 billion of the city’s $3.8 billion annual budget goes to police salaries, pensions and other expenses. But LAPD salaries have slipped sharply in the last decade when compared with many other California law enforcement agencies.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is a case in point. As recently as 1988, LAPD officers were paid more at every rank than the sheriff’s employees. But that position has shifted to the point that this year new sheriff’s deputies make $8,000 more, or $41,636, than LAPD rookies. And the difference stretches to about $9,000 after five years of service.

Those figures do not include the substantially greater bonuses that deputies and their supervisors receive for advanced training courses approved by the California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training. The LAPD pays a maximum of $180 a year for such extra training, whereas deputies can earn as much as $3,000 annually and sheriff’s lieutenants $5,000 annually.

Sheriff’s deputies have already negotiated a 4% salary increase for next year that will push their pay even higher.

Leaders of the Police Protective League cite figures like those in their campaign for a pay raise. (They also point out that the city just last month managed to come up with a raise of 9% over four years for striking Department of Water and Power workers.) In addition, the league points out that Los Angeles officers must give up 7% or 8% of their pay in contributions to their retirement system.

In many other California cities--including Anaheim, Oakland and San Francisco--police have negotiated to eliminate personal contributions toward their pensions. Those cities also pay their officers as much, or substantially more, than the LAPD’s.

A consultant hired by the Police Protective League argues that it is in incentive pay and retirement deductions that Los Angeles officers are taking the greatest beating, compared to their peers.

“That’s the area where they are the weakest,” said Ken Akins of Sacramento-based University Research and Associates. “If substantial change were made in those areas, they would advance their position substantially.”

But city officials said the police pension system, in particular, is already placing a tremendous strain on the municipal budget.

More than one-third of the Police Department’s budget currently goes to maintain the pension system. And most of that bill will not benefit current officers. It was run up because the city failed for 30 years after the Great Depression to adequately fund the pension system, an error in judgment that must be repaid by city funds and employee payroll deductions well into the next century, said Gary Mattingly, manager of the Fire and Police Pension System.

The $342-million annual pension payment may also explain how the city rates near the top compared with other cities in per capita police spending, but lower when its salaries are compared with other departments.

“When you take tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to fund an under-funded pension system, then you do not have that money available to increase salaries,” argued City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

City officials acknowledge the city has slipped from its nearly preeminent position in paying officers. But they contend that LAPD officers are still the beneficiaries of many other perks.

They note, for example, that pension rules allow officers hired before 1980 to retire as young as 40, compared with the minimum retirement age of 50 in most other systems. And they say that LAPD officers have a far better chance than in other departments to increase their pay through promotion.

“When you come to the LAPD, you get significant training and you have major promotional opportunities,” said Keith Comrie, the city’s administrative officer. “That hasn’t changed.”

As proof of the department’s desirability, Comrie noted that “thousands” of applicants still sign up for LAPD recruitment exams.

Largely absent from the contract debate and the status of the LAPD in the larger police community has been the department’s own brass.

Chief Willie L. Williams and his top assistants declined a request for comment on the police union’s contention that the department is lagging in pay and benefits. Williams and others have said they do not want to make public comments that could hamper ongoing negotiations.

But in an in-house videotape played for officers last month, Williams told his troops he believes they deserve a raise.

Mayor Richard Riordan also has said little publicly about the labor dispute. Aides said he wants to give the officers a raise but must balance that with the city’s budget picture and his campaign pledge to greatly expand the force. Williams’ report on adding more officers to the department, which is expected in mid-October, will affect the debate over salaries, aides said.

“He’s very sympathetic to the concerns of the police officers,” said Riordan’s chief of staff, William McCarley. “If he can find the money, he would be the first to make sure the police officers are properly compensated. The first thing you have to do is find the money and that’s real difficult.”

Sympathetic comments also came from a high-ranking police official, who privately agreed with the union’s contention that rank-and-file officers’ compensation does not measure up as it once did.

“Everybody has recognized what has happened over the last few years,” said the official, who asked not to be named. “I think what you are looking at is years of neglect and lack of support for the institution.”

The Police Protective League rejected the notion promoted by city management that the LAPD is still an organization with vast opportunities. Union chief David Zeigler said that even the allure of advancement has been dimmed by promotion restrictions linked to the city’s budget predicament.

“The Los Angeles Police Department is no longer a career,” Zeigler said. “It’s a job.”

Times staff writer Marc Lacey contributed to this story.

Pay Scales

Los Angeles police officers, without a contract for 15 months, are trying to win a raise from city officials pleading poverty. Here is a look at how LAPD pay compares to salaries offered by the nation’s six largest police departments as well as the state’s 10 largest departments and the county Sheriff’s Department.

BIG SIX” U.S. POLICE DEPARTMENTS

Department Police officer Police Officer Sergeant Lieutenant (H.S. graduate) (5 years exp.) * LOS ANGELES $33,157 $39,943 $52,387 $61,658 * Chicago $30,378 $39,516 $55,602 $62,154 * Detroit $27,855 $36,795 $45,200 $50,700 * New York $27,155 $42,629 $49,987 $56,845 * Houston $26,506 $32,432 $40,076 $45,359 * Philadelphia $26,010 $35,809 $38,445 $43,827

CALIFORNIA POLICE DEPARTMENTS

Department Police officer Police Officer Sergeant Lieutenant (H.S. graduate) (5 years exp.) * Santa Ana $43,896 $50,832 $54,132 $82,020 * Fresno $42,426 $48,852 $50,952 $59,076 * Oakland $41,976 $48,972 $61,044 $70,608 * San Francisco $41,864 $48,468 $56,246 $64,258 * L.A. Sheriff $41,636 $48,912 $52,404 $62,280 * San Jose $36,800 $44,200 $59,854 $69,293 * Long Beach $34,308 $42,480 $53,520 $64,776 * Anaheim $33,654 $45,094 $51,542 $58,381 * LOS ANGELES $33,157 $39,943 $52,387 $61,658 * Sacramento $32,462 $34,898 $37,867 $43,861 * San Diego $29,196 $37,236 $43,536 $52,596

SOURCE: Individual police departments. Except where indicated, pay is minimum starting salary for rank. Figures do not include variable bonuses and stipends, such as those offered for intermediate and advanced training by the California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training.