Blueprint for Future LAPD Is Still on Drawing Board

In the Los Angeles Police Department of the future, more than 10,000 police officers work out of new stations and report to a new headquarters--one where the floors don’t sag and the pipes don’t leak.

A modern dispatch center quickly fields emergency calls. Police investigate crimes with computers mounted in their cars and report to satellite stations scattered across the far reaches of the city. A certified crime laboratory analyzes evidence without long delays, and a sophisticated computerized tracking system warns supervisors of officers whose behavior seems to signal potential problems.

In that LAPD, arrests are up, complaints against officers are down and crime--to the extent that police can control it--is held in check by an assertive department that works hand in hand with a community that trusts its police.

That is a vision of the LAPD that combines key recommendations of reformers, rebuilders and others--and that emerges largely from four recent consultants’ reports on the state of the Police Department.

Collectively, the four documents--analyzing support services, technology, facilities and the state of LAPD reform--form a blueprint for the police force. So far, the department has done little to put that blueprint to paper, much less into action.

“It is my great frustration that I see a reactive department rather than a proactive one,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, who chairs the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. “We need to consolidate all these ideas and develop a plan.”

Bill Moran, the LAPD’s director of fiscal operations, agreed that the reports have not been pulled together, saying: “This thing has to be melded into one working plan at some point.”

For now, LAPD leaders complain that they are overwhelmed by competing priorities and budget shortfalls. They have moved in piecemeal fashion on some recommendations while ignoring others. At the request of Mayor Richard Riordan, department officials recently drafted a short-term list of priorities outlining possible improvements for the coming year, but there has not been any long-term effort to integrate the findings of the consultants into a single plan.

At first glance, that seems understandable. Combined, the four reports make hundreds of recommendations, many of them costly. The support services’ study alone--performed by Blue Marble Partners and Decision Management Associates--is about three inches thick and includes 72 recommendations labeled “important,” “very important,” “critical” or “mission critical.”

But while the reports are voluminous and sometimes conflicting, they also have points in common. Suggestions for improving the crime lab and expanding the LAPD run through the documents, and some of the cost estimates overlap as well. In fact, despite the volume of material, a methodical review of the four reports and interviews with the city’s top leaders produce a widely agreed upon list of ways to modernize and improve the LAPD.

Among the top suggestions:

* Increase the size of the department to at least 10,000 officers, a net gain of about 750 from the current force. Price tag: roughly $40 million a year, plus about $6 million to pay for cars and equipment for the new officers.

* Replace police headquarters, Parker Center, with a new central complex of buildings that would contain a new crime lab, warehouses and other amenities. Price tag: $273.6 million.

* Rebuild three decaying police stations and build two new ones. Price tag: $119 million.

* Build or lease 10 police satellite stations, scaled-down versions of full stations that would increase the LAPD’s presence across the city. Price tag: $40 million.

* Modernize the 911 system. Price tag: Voters have approved a bond measure to pay for these improvements, so there is no immediate cost. If a separate number, 311, is established to handle nonemergency calls, an internal LAPD study estimates the additional annual costs at $275,781.

* Expand and modernize the bomb squad. Price tag: $5.8 million.

* Develop a unit that would be responsible for identifying, controlling and managing at-risk situations and officers--and that would try to hold down lawsuits against the department. Price tag: $0.

* Boost Internal Affairs by 90 to 100 officers, enough to fulfill a long-standing recommendation that the unit have enough staff to handle all citizen complaints--or at least those in which the allegations involve racism, excessive force or extreme discourtesy. About $6 million.

* Upgrade the department’s computer tracking system for potentially problem officers. Price tag: No more than $800,000.

* Create an anti-discrimination unit to investigate complaints of harassment and discrimination by LAPD officers. Price tag: Roughly $450,000.

* Add about 200 field training officers to accommodate growth in the department and to improve training for young academy graduates. Price tag: $12 million.

Those 11 suggestions were assembled by The Times from the consultant reports and from interviews with top city leaders. Although some officials offered other suggestions, the 11 proposals reflect a general consensus of representatives of the Police Commission, mayor’s office, City Council and LAPD.

According to police Commissioner Edith R. Perez, the proposals represent “the top priorities as we try to deliver on the department’s mission, which is public safety and the need to reduce crime.”

Police Chief Willie L. Williams agreed, calling each of the items on the list “an extremely high priority.”

That leaders can agree on a rough list is the good news. The bad news: The bottom line for those improvements is roughly $500 million. That represents about $150 per resident of Los Angeles, and even if all of the proposals were carried out, the department’s long-term needs would remain formidable.

Still, it is possible to find $500 million in a city as large as Los Angeles.

City Council members and other officials are contemplating a ballot measure next year that would raise about $200 million for LAPD facilities. According to a city administrative office analysis of that proposal, a $200-million bond financed over 20 years would cost the average city homeowner about $10.55 a year. The proposals on the list compiled by The Times would cost just over twice as much, though some of the staffing increases would have to be paid for separately because bonds cannot cover ongoing expenses.

But before the city can ask voters for help, council members, commissioners and the mayor say the LAPD must show the willingness to put its house in order.

Among other things, that means demonstrating that the department has a clear plan for the future--both in terms of staffing and in terms of modernizing its decaying buildings.

Improvements such as new police stations, a new headquarters and a new crime lab top the list of suggestions for modernizing the LAPD’s dilapidated facilities. Riordan, who says the key to more effective LAPD performance is stronger management and accountability, echoes the call for new buildings, saying they are needed to streamline operations and improve morale.

Nowhere is the need for new facilities more obvious than at Parker Center, legendary headquarters of the department.

Once a gleaming symbol of the LAPD’s might, Parker Center today is overcrowded and overburdened, its senior officers crammed into cramped and musty quarters, its files overflowing and its infrastructure inexorably breaking down. After the 1994 earthquake, water ran down staircases and hallways from ruptured pipes; the building sat in darkness, a blind nerve center in the midst of a city crisis.

In their report on LAPD facilities, consultant Larry Kosmont and his associates detailed many of Parker Center’s woes and proposed tackling them in conjunction with other LAPD problems such as its much-maligned crime lab. That report recommended a complex that would include office space for top LAPD brass and that would house some department operations, as well as provide facilities for support staff and the crime lab.

Virtually all observers agree that it is only a matter of time until those improvements have to be made. The stumbling block is their cost. At an estimated $273.6 million, those proposals are by far the most expensive item on the LAPD’s wish list.

The agenda of reformers, meanwhile, includes an array of proposals. Among those are the call for an expanded Internal Affairs Division--a proposal that Williams has supported but also allowed to be put on a back burner--and for the creation of an officer tracking system and an anti-discrimination unit.

Some of those ideas are moving forward, but their progress has been halting. The discrimination unit has been on the drawing boards for two years, but has yet to investigate a single complaint. The tracking system is under development, but even when it is complete, it will not be what boosters had hoped for--a system more akin to what the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is developing.

The LAPD’s tracking system, a recent analysis of police reform concluded, is “weak and inadequate.” The cost for a system more like the Sheriff’s Department’s would run no higher than about $800,000, said sheriff’s officials, who are hoping to lease or sell their system to other agencies.

Even more important, in the eyes of some observers, is the need for a single unit responsible for driving down the city’s liability in use-of-force cases. Success in this arena might even pay for the other reforms.

And the best news about that unit is that creating it would essentially be free, because the department already has the people needed to run it. All the LAPD needs is an organizational reshuffling that would combine duties now scattered throughout the department.

What is especially striking about the proposals for reforming the LAPD is how relatively cheap they are compared to new buildings or new hires. Collectively, the reform measures come to less than $8 million.

What’s more, reform might turn out to be a money-saver.

“Reform quickly pays dividends,” said Merrick J. Bobb, a Los Angeles lawyer who specializes in police reform and who analyzed the state of LAPD reform in 1996. “I think it makes no sense at all not to invest in reform. It quickly ends up paying for itself.”

Reform, facilities and support services form key planks in the LAPD modernization platform. But they are by no means the only ideas for LAPD improvement.

Technology shortfalls of all sorts constrain the department--from the lack of standardized computers to a shortage of batteries for police radios to the absence of an automated payroll system. Bringing the LAPD up to par in those areas could cost more than $200 million, though the report analyzing the department’s technological needs also estimates that the savings in officer time and efficiency would be profound and nearly immediate.

In addition, that estimate may be overstated because some of the other recommended improvements already include money for technology. For instance, the estimates for new police stations and a new headquarters complex take technology needs into account, setting aside the equivalent of $26 per square foot for technology improvements, according to Kosmont, whose company drafted the LAPD facilities study.

The technology report, prepared by the Mitre Corp., indicates that even if the LAPD spent $200 million to upgrade its technology, the department would begin saving money by 1999. Within 10 years, that study estimated, the police agency might save as much as $750 million--more than the estimated cost of the remaining improvements put together.

All of that appeals to the mayor, commissioners and council members. And yet they admit that even the prospect of significant savings down the road does not make it easy to swallow the upfront costs of modernization.

The LAPD’s annual budget tops $1 billion, and the improvements needed to modernize it could easily cost half that again--even more, as the long-term facilities needs continue to catch up with a Police Department that deferred its upgrading for decades.

The city’s general fund is perennially short of cash, and city leaders are reluctant to broach the notion of tax hikes. That leaves bond measures.

And there is some precedent for Los Angeles voters digging deep to fund the LAPD.

In 1992, voters backed a $235-million measure to upgrade the city’s emergency 911 system. Unfortunately, that money has not yielded quick results. Long waits still are common for callers to the emergency service, and an alarming number of calls are dropped before the caller is connected.

LAPD officials, under prodding by the Police Commission, are pressing forward with the 911 improvements and are exploring creation of a 311 number that would handle nonemergency calls. But the spotty progress may make it harder to convince voters to support a new bond measure. Riordan and other city leaders acknowledge that the 911 problems may make another bond measure tricky, but they stress that Los Angeles government today is different than it was in 1992.

“We’ll make sure the money is used right this time,” the mayor said. “This all comes down to management, management, management. That’s what we’ll insist on.”

Police Commission President Raymond C. Fisher said he believes that the key to winning public support for LAPD improvements--whether the 11 ideas identified from the consultant reports or another list of suggestions--lies in producing a definitive list of the LAPD’s needs and a coherent plan for how the money would be spent. And those, Fisher added, are tasks that the department needs to begin undertaking now.

“This is something that we need to address right away as the new year begins,” he said. “I’d hope the department could do that within about 90 days. . . . I would be very disappointed if it took six months.”

Still, the LAPD has spent more than seven months trying to answer the question of why arrests have dropped and more than a year trying to dissect the checkered career of former Det. Mark Fuhrman. Therefore, producing a comprehensive vision of the department’s future may prove to be a significant challenge.

As city officials question whether the LAPD will take the steps needed to secure the future suggested by its own consultants, some express hope. But they temper it with realism.

“Government is very bad at something,” said Councilwoman Chick. “We’re very bad at planning for the future. But that’s what is needed here. . . . What I’m looking for now from the LAPD is bringing these reports together instead of saying: ‘Now what do you want us to do?’

“They need to establish the priorities,” Chick added. “Because we need to move forward.”

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Four Reports and Their Findings

Four documents--analyzing support services, technology, facilities and the state of LAPD reform--form a blueprint for the future of Los Angeles’ police force. So far, the department has done little to put that blueprint to paper, much less into action. Following are snapshots of observations from the four reports:

* “Los Angeles Police Department Facilities Study,” prepared by Kosmont & Associates. Analyzed LAPD facilities and concluded that they were “overcrowded, obsolete and in disrepair.” Recommended extensive renovations, new construction, real estate purchases and leasing.

* “Re-Engineering the Los Angeles Police Department: The Business Case,” prepared by the Mitre Corp. Studied LAPD operations and technological infrastructure, finding that investment of $146 million to $260 million over 10 years would save roughly $750 million over that same time--not to mention improving officer morale and public safety.

* “Review of the Support Services of the Police Department, City of Los Angeles,” prepared by Blue Marble Partners and Decision Management Associates. Reviewed support operations across the LAPD, finding scores of problems that are wasting money and undermining police effectiveness, from training deficiencies to an inadequate crime lab.

* “Five Years Later: A Report to the Los Angeles Police Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department’s Implementation of Independent Commission Recommendations,” prepared by a group of lawyers led by Merrick J. Bobb, special counsel to the Police Commission. Concluded that there was some progress on highly touted reforms, but also highlighted the need for “more focused, deft and efficient internal management” of the LAPD.