Chief Cites Obstacles in LAPD Expansion

The Los Angeles Police Department is on track with its efforts to hire new officers, but it is losing large numbers of experienced members to other departments, Chief Willie L. Williams said Monday.

The chief cited the high attrition rate--about 10 officers a month on top of those who retire--and its inability to attract many experienced officers from other departments as key reasons the department is falling behind in the city’s ambitious plan to expand the size of the police force by nearly 40% within five years.

In a progress report on key department reform activities, Williams told the City Council’s Public Safety Committee the LAPD will come within 95% of its goal of having 9,405 sworn officers on the force by June 30, the end of the fiscal year.

“I think that should be applauded rather than denigrated,” the chief said, apparently reacting to criticism that the department has not moved fast enough on expansion efforts, a top priority for Mayor Richard Riordan and many City Council members.

Williams said he needs the council’s help in making the department more attractive to officers from other agencies, as well as to its own members.

In interviews with departing officers, who average five years experience on the force, the LAPD said the reasons most frequently cited for leaving included inadequate salaries and benefits and poor working conditions--outdated equipment, poor work schedules and cramped and dilapidated station houses.

For many of those same reasons, the department has been unable to attract more than a handful of officers from other agencies, many of whom offer better pay in generally safer communities, the LAPD found.

New construction at several police facilities is already planned, although space will still lag behind the need, and the demand is acute for more modern equipment, including cellular telephones and fax machines, Williams noted.

Councilman Marvin Braude, the committee chairman, praised the thoroughness of the report, saying it provided a good outline of the obstacles to expansion. He said in an interview later that he is troubled by a number of issues raised in the report, including the length of time it takes for a department applicant to complete the hiring process.

Only 41% of recruits completed the screening procedures within one year, the report said. In some cases, the process stretches as long as two years, leading some recruits to take other jobs.

In an interview after the council committee session, Williams vigorously defended the LAPD’s efforts to fulfill expansion goals and repeated his call for the council and mayor to help remove some of the obstacles.

“Where we’re short of our goal, it is not because the LAPD management, the chief and the commission have failed to deliver,” Williams said. “It is because we as a city government have not addressed these issues” of low pay and poor equipment and facilities.

“When we developed the public safety plan, part of the plan in the report to the mayor points out that we have to address not just hiring but all these other issues,” Williams added.

Since approval of the expansion plan, the LAPD has sharply stepped up hiring, boosting the average number of monthly Police Academy graduates from just over 30 to about 50. That is fast enough to achieve the goals laid out in the plan, but progress has been undercut by attrition. More than 400 officers leave the department every year.

Under the plan, the LAPD was expected to lose no more than 330 officers this fiscal year to attrition, but Williams conceded that the number will be higher. Also, the expectation that the department could attract officers from other departments is not panning out; only 14 were lured in the first half of the fiscal year.

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Although there is mounting political pressure to deliver on the expansion efforts, Williams said he objected to being held responsible for shortfalls, particularly in those areas where only greater commitment from city government can make a difference. “My concern is that you hold Willie Williams responsible and accountable for those things that are expected of me, those things that you give me the resources to do,” Williams said. “That is not very clear today. There are people who have unrealistic goals. There are some people who feel that if you fall short of 100% of your goals, then you’re a failure. I think that’s unrealistic.”