New Equipment Favored Over More Officers

More than $435,000 in state public safety funding coming to the city should not be used to hire additional police officers, police and city officials said, because of uncertainties over the future of the state program.

Instead, the Police Department plans to spend a third of the state money on video cameras for squad cars and two-thirds on computer equipment, Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said.

“This was a compromise bill,” Lowenberg said of legislation that created the Citizen Options for Public Safety program, known as COPS. Law enforcement groups hope to persuade legislators to make the program “an ongoing funding source, not just a year-to-year funding source,” he said.

The legislation, signed by Gov. Pete Wilson in July, provides $100 million statewide for local law enforcement, with allocations based on population.

“This legislation stipulates that each year the state Legislature has to appropriate this money,” City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga said. “I’m not about to recommend that we hire additional police officers for this and then find out a year from now that we’ve got to come up with $435,000 or reduce those people.”

In recent years, city officials have been criticized by the Police Officers Assn. for not hiring additional officers. The City Council approved a $900,000 increase in Police Department spending in the budget for fiscal 1996-97.

But even with the increase, two sworn officer positions and one civilian job will be lost because of rising costs. The department is also losing another police officer whose position is funded by declining federal narcotics forfeiture funds.

Council members will vote Nov. 4 on the proposal for spending the state COPS funds.