Vacancies Hamper LAPD, Parks Says

As a recently expanded Los Angeles Police Department embarks on a “revitalized and more active” mission under Chief Bernard C. Parks, officers’ efforts in the field are being crippled by dozens of vacancies in key civilian jobs, according to a letter obtained by The Times.

The Jan. 22 letter from Parks to several Los Angeles City Council members refers to 44 clerical, administrative, scientific and technical positions that remain frozen despite requests by police officials that they be filled.

There are an additional 171 frozen slots that police have not yet requested be filled, and 450 unfrozen vacancies that remain open for a variety of reasons, the letter stated.

“The cumulative effect . . . is having a serious adverse impact on the Police Department’s ability to adequately support its field forces,” Parks wrote.

For example, vacant clerical positions are resulting in incomplete data being entered into the department’s main crime database, hampering crime analysis, which is a key component of the LAPD’s new FASTRAC program in which officers swarm on high-crime areas.

Shortages in the area of forensic fingerprint specialists are “severely limiting” the number of prints that are entered into the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, an essential crime-fighting tool, Parks wrote.

“There is currently a backlog of 7,000 unsolved homicide cases with fingerprint evidence awaiting comparison which cannot be input to the system,” Parks wrote.

Even the cleanliness of Police Department bathrooms is suffering, which, the chief wrote, “can have a negative impact on health, safety and employee morale.”

Parks, who was not available for comment Sunday, said in the letter that he understands that the shortages are due to fiscal problems.

“However, the recent unprecedented growth of the department’s sworn complement has placed tremendous strain on the support functions, as has the recently revitalized and more active nature of police operations,” he concluded. “The department cannot meet the city officials’ and the citizens’ expectations without bolstering its critical support functions.”

The future doesn’t look any brighter: The LAPD was told to cut 6% from its upcoming billion-dollar budget, but department officials instead came back with a proposal to increase spending by millions of dollars. Similar battles are brewing between several other city departments and Mayor Richard Riordan and his budget aides.

In the letter, Parks said he wants the City Council to scrap the current approach to saving money by freezing jobs, and instead give police officials a specific salary savings goal and the ability to make cuts where they see fit. The chief requested permission to raise the issue at today’s meeting of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the Public Safety Committee and was one of the recipients of Parks’ letter, said she “couldn’t agree more” with the chief.

Chick said she has long warned that civilian support staff hiring was not keeping pace with the nearly 2,000 sworn officers who have joined the department’s ranks over the past five years.

“The problem is a real and legitimate one,” Chick said in an interview Sunday.

*

Nonetheless, Chick said she does not intend to allow the matter to be discussed today.

“I don’t schedule things in committee without having some information to go on,” Chick said. “With the very spartan information I have, I can’t make a recommendation of what should be done about this immediate situation, which has accumulated over the past five years.”

Chick said Parks and other top city managers should have better flexibility in meeting their goals, and that she plans to introduce a motion asking city budget experts “how we can become less dysfunctional” in the budgeting process.

“A tool that I inherited and that I disagree with is balancing the budget by having hiring freezes,” she said.

“What I don’t know yet is exactly what the immediate solution should be for the LAPD,” she said. “I’m going to start getting some answers on Monday.”