Flood of Departures Offsets LAPD Hiring Gains : Law enforcement: Despite a near-record number of recruits last fiscal year, the number of officers is about 215 short of Mayor Riordan’s goal.

Los Angeles police recruiters have hired a near-record number of officers this year, but the departure of hundreds of others--many with decades of experience--has undercut those gains and thrown Mayor Richard Riordan’s plan to boost public safety behind schedule.

Particularly worrisome to LAPD officials is the number of senior officers retiring or resigning from the force. The continuing exodus of LAPD veterans has opened a vacuum at the upper reaches of the command structure, where uncertainty about Police Chief Willie L. Williams’ future already is creating a deep sense of paralysis. And the loss of long-serving rank-and-file officers to other departments is draining the department of experience, officials say.

The resignations and retirements, fueled by sagging morale and the lure of higher pay elsewhere, are putting a crimp in Riordan’s efforts to expand the force by 2,855 officers in five years. Bolstering the LAPD was Riordan’s central campaign pledge, raising the stakes for the mayor and his aides as they contemplate how to stem the stream of departing officers.

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The department made 926 hires this last fiscal year, easily exceeding the annual goal of 780 set by Riordan’s safety blueprint, according to data Williams is expected to release today.(thurs) Many of the new hires are still in the police academy, however. The plan assumed that the LAPD would lose about 330 officers last fiscal year, but the department’s managers, unable to staunch the flow of attrition, saw 474 officers depart. A year into the safety plan, there are 8,195 officers on the force--215 officers below the current goal.

Despite the heavy attrition, the mayor’s aides say he remains confident that the department can make up for the shortfall during the rest of his term. But leaders of the Police Protective League say the number of officers fleeing the department will continue to soar unless the city shows more support for the police force, starting with a new contract.

“The city has to make the entire package more attractive to recruits,” league President Cliff Ruff said. “We need to make this job a career.”

To thwart attrition, the Police Commission has asked the city to demand that when an officer leaves the LAPD with less than five years of service, he must repay the cost of his training. The city pays about $100,000 to train a recruit.

Frequently offering better wages and benefits, a safer environment and a less-political atmosphere, law enforcement agencies across the country hired away 77 LAPD officers last year. Police chiefs say they don’t even need to advertise.

“I’ll take all I can get,” said Fullerton Police Chief Pat McKinley, who left the LAPD himself in 1993 after serving for 29 years. “I’m very high on the LAPD. They just apply. We don’t recruit.” McKinley said he has hired four LAPD officers in the past two years.

Los Angeles police records show that the Beverly Hills Police Department was the most popular new employer among officers who quit the LAPD in 1994. Five of the 77 officers who left the force to take jobs in other cities were hired by Beverly Hills, led by Chief Marvin D. Iannone, a former LAPD assistant chief. “If they’re going to leave, it’s in the best interests of Beverly Hills to take the cream of the crop. Sure we’ll capitalize on it,” he said.

An officer who accepted an offer from Beverly Hills reported winning a $600-per-month salary increase and an 18% increase in benefits. Another likened the Beverly Hills’ locker room to “a golf country club environment.” Other police departments are enticing recruits with state-of-the-art equipment and $2,000 signing bonuses.

“The taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles are paying for the Beverly Hills Police Department. It’s not fair. It puts us at a competitive disadvantage,” Police Commissioner Art Mattox said. “Cities like Beverly Hills are exploiting the situation.”

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So many officers are leaving the Los Angeles department that police chiefs across the nation see the LAPD as a choice recruiting pool. With academy training and a few years experience on a big-city force, young LAPD officers enter the job market looking like top draft picks, police chiefs say. Older officers, who a few years ago might have stayed beyond the 20 years they need for full retirement benefits, are leaving earlier to accept high-ranking posts at other law enforcement agencies.

One factor underlying the large number of departures is the cyclical turnover of several unusually large police academy classes from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The bulk of the officers hired in those years put in 20 or 25 years of service and recently reached a traditional retirement age. In its rush to hire hundreds of new recruits now, the LAPD is setting itself up to face the same problem two decades from now, critics say.

Of the 112 officers eligible for retirement and who left the department during the first six months of this year, nearly half did so to take other police or related jobs, an LAPD personnel official said. During the same period last year, only 34 of the 143 retirees headed to other law enforcement posts.

According to 1994 exit interviews, which the department conducts with officers who resign before retirement age, many said they left to accept higher pay at departments that were closer to their homes, in safer communities or less embroiled in political and management controversies.

Summaries of the year’s interviews, obtained by The Times, suggest that a majority of these younger officers quitting the force are deeply dissatisfied with what they see as a management structure that communicates poorly, is self-interested and undervalues the difficulties of working on the street.

“The management of our department needs to wake up,” said one officer who left after six years. “Our department is in a tailspin and it is deteriorating. We need to quit treating people like they are schoolchildren. . . . Management by intimidation doesn’t create a good environment to work in.”

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One of most vexing problems that has arisen from this ongoing exodus is the number of seasoned officers who also are retiring or taking top posts at other departments. And they, too, are citing the department’s persistent political troubles as one of the major reasons, including the Rodney G. King beating, the 1992 riots and Chief Williams’ recent problems with the Police Commission.

So many of them have left to become police chiefs elsewhere, said Cam Sanchez, chief of the Hollister Police Department, that “when we go to chiefs’ conferences, we have a whole room for L.A. alumni.” Sanchez left the LAPD in 1993 as a sergeant after serving 13 years.

“It’s a knowledge drain,” Mattox said.

According to personnel statistics, for example, the average tenure for a senior deputy chief was 35.3 years in 1990, but has dropped to 28.5 today. Among other top ranks, however, the average tenure remains unchanged.

City Councilman Marvin Braude, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, suggested that one key way to curb the departure rate is for Sacramento to impose a statewide pay scale for police officers.

“We can put another Band-Aid on, we can work on improving work conditions, we can do all these things,” Braude said. “But will it be enough? I’m not certain.”