LOS ANGELES : Changes to Clinton Crime Bill May Cut Police Hiring

Congressional rewriting of President Clinton’s anti-crime legislation could spell big trouble for Los Angeles’ efforts to boost the size of its Police Department, city officials said Thursday.

For the coming budget year, which begins July 1, the city is counting on getting at least $43 million--and perhaps as much as $60 million--from the federal crime bill passed last summer. The city would use $37.5 million to pay for 500 additional police officers for the next three years. The balance would go toward updating equipment and hiring civilians to take over some duties so officers could do more policing.

But what happens afterward depends on the outcome of the showdown under way between the Clinton Administration, which promised to put 100,000 new police officers on the nation’s streets by the turn of the century, and congressional Republicans. The House rewrote large chunks of the President’s $33-billion anti-crime package, and he has threatened to veto the bills that make up the new version. The Senate is expected to take up the House bills next month.

Councilman Marvin Braude said he will ask the City Council to oppose any legislation that would change the major provisions of the 1994 anti-crime legislation. But several police and city officials at Thursday’s special meeting of the council’s Public Safety Committee, which Braude chairs, urged a wait-and-see posture.