Mayor to Unveil Rosiest Budget in Recent Years

Capitalizing on a growing economy and another infusion of federal dollars, Mayor Richard Riordan today will release his final budget of the millennium, a spending plan that proposes to hire 157 police officers and 126 firefighters, as well as to expand library services, eliminate admission fees at city pools and beef up efforts to handle roaming dogs.

The fiscal blueprint for the city’s $2.8-billion general fund represents the largest expansion of city revenue in recent years, and it is built on the strength of Los Angeles’ expanding economy in myriad ways.

The rosy financial picture for Los Angeles is part of California’s generally bright economy, recovering at last from the recession of the early 1990s. The state of California and local governments throughout the region--Beverly Hills, Culver City and Santa Monica, for instance--are seeing improvements in their tax bases, said Tom Lieser, executive director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, an economic analysis center.

“Last year was a good year, and the first quarter of this year, if anything, is even stronger,” he said. Evidence of that strength abounds in the budget that Riordan will propose to the council.

More economic activity means more money from business taxes and sales taxes. Rising property values and home sales mean a jump in property tax revenue. More tourists--a record 23.5 million visited the city in 1998--yield increases in money from hotel levies.

Combined, those four sources are expected to generate an additional $58 million next year for the city budget, with another sizable chunk coming from other fees, licenses and taxes driven upward by the rising economy. All told, so-called economically sensitive revenues are projected to increase $103 million, allowing the mayor to launch new programs and beef up the reserve fund while avoiding the politically dicey proposition of raising taxes.

The budget “represents the year when our residents realize the full return on their investment,” Riordan said in his budget message, which will be delivered to the City Council today. In addition to expanding some services and initiating others, the mayor proposes to reallocate to poorer parts of Los Angeles some pools of money, which are currently spread citywide or concentrated in wealthier areas.

Los Angeles County also unveiled a budget Monday and it, too, reflects the improving economic picture. The county, which encompasses a wide array of rich and poor areas, projects a 3.5% increase in property tax revenue, allowing the county government to continue its cautious emergence from near-bankruptcy in 1995.

At the same time, the county and city continue to benefit from federal largess. In Riordan’s proposed budget, the most noticeable impact of that money is, as in recent years, on the Los Angeles Police Department. With the federal government’s help, Riordan proposes to assign an extra 88 officers to patrol duties and also to add 25 sergeants. The money also would pay for a small number of detectives assigned to investigating rapes and crimes against children.

Although the budget asks for few sacrifices and, thus, presents few obvious targets for opposition, it never sails through the City Council uncontested, and Riordan’s foes there are primed for a fight. In particular, Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg is enraged with the mayor for ousting Jeff Horton from the Los Angeles Board of Education in last week’s elections, and she, among others, is expected to put the budget to the test when it is presented to council for approval.

Other potential controversies include the recommended allocations for police and animal control.

Councilwoman Rita Walters, probably the mayor’s fiercest council critic, has made it clear that she wants the city to improve its efforts to corral stray dogs. Whether Riordan’s budget meets her expectations will be one early test of the spending plan’s political standing.

In a meeting with Times reporters and editors Monday, Riordan emphasized the planned improvements to the Animal Services budget. An additional $3.7 million will add to that department’s efforts, he said, giving it the money to pay for a 20% increase in animal control officers.

“We’d go for even more, but you can only train so many people at a time,” Riordan added.

A bigger-ticket item that often surfaces in the City Council’s evaluation of the mayor’s budget is its reliance on federal grant money to make ends meet.

Since coming to office in 1993 on a pledge to expand the Los Angeles Police Department by 3,000 officers in four years--a promise he failed to fulfill but is belatedly approaching--Riordan has guided the LAPD to its biggest force ever. Today’s police force consists of 9,668 officers; over the mayor’s remaining two years in office, the LAPD is projected for the first time to top 10,000 officers, a symbolic threshold but one whose relationship to public safety is difficult to gauge.

Some observers credit the growing size and visibility of the LAPD with helping to drive down crime in Los Angeles--an argument similar to that made on behalf of New York City’s Police Department. Others, noting that falling crime here is accompanied by declines in most major American cities, believe that a variety of social, economic and other factors such as shifting drug habits are the main reasons for the decline in crime and that police activity has little direct effect.

Riordan does not argue that all of the local crime decline is the result of more police, but said Monday that he believes the expansion of the LAPD--along with more widespread incarceration of violent criminals--has played a role and stressed that the department needs to continue to grow over the next seven to eight years.

Of the new hires to the LAPD since Riordan took office, 1,353 have been paid for with federal money, and many city officials have warned that the reliance on federal funds could leave the city vulnerable to cutbacks when Washington’s support dries up. Since the current budget advocates building still further with federal money, council members such as Laura Chick, who heads the Public Safety Committee, can be expected to raise that concern again.

Anticipating that, Deputy Mayor Jennifer Roth noted that Los Angeles today is paying more than 95% of the ongoing expenses associated with its new police hires. Over the last few years, the city has stepped up its commitment as the federal money has trickled away, Roth said.

That, she and other officials said, leaves the city in good shape to keep taking on federally subsidized police hires.

“Are we strangling future budgets?” Riordan asked rhetorically. “We don’t think so. . . . Plus, if it’s important, as I believe it is, you can’t wimp out.”

One other small but possibly contentious budget item involves the mayor’s proposed spending for his own office and for council staffs. While the council is recommended to receive a 3% budget increase, the mayor proposes raising his own staff budget by 12%.

The growing pot of city money allows Riordan to propose a host of popular programs and services.

Under the proposed budget, the Recreation and Parks Department would be able to hire 21 new recreation directors, eliminate fees for city pools and improve 10 baseball diamonds, among other things.

The Fire Department would get not only additional firefighters but also $7 million in improvements to equipment and facilities. The Library Department would get $1-million worth of new books and resources to allow 30 libraries to stay open longer. The widely touted L.A.’s BEST, which provides educational opportunities to children after school, would receive an additional $1 million to expand and improve.

In the area of community improvement, Riordan’s budget provides funds to rehabilitate or demolish 400 abandoned buildings over the next two years. It also would pay for 100,000 additional meals to be delivered to the elderly, an effort that Riordan has periodically joined in person.

One area that will conspicuously not receive an increase is L.A. Bridges, a city program that seeks to deter young people from joining gangs and committing crimes. Riordan made no apologies for that decision. When an aide described L.A. Bridges as having received “mixed reviews,” Riordan corrected her.

“It’s just pure pork barrel,” he said of the program, adding that although he believes it works well in some parts of the city, it has failed in others. In his budget, Riordan notes that an evaluation of L.A. Bridges is underway “to determine its effectiveness and make recommendations to strengthen its focus.”

When it reaches the council, the budget will be managed by Councilman Richard Alatorre, who heads the Budget and Finance Committee and who generally agrees with Riordan on city priorities. Alatorre has tentatively set April 29 for the first budget hearing, and hopes to have the full package sent to council in late May.

Times staff writers Beth Shuster and Nick Riccardi contributed to this story.

* COUNTY BUDGET: Los Angeles County proposes a $14.3-billion budget that restores some services. B1

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Proposed City Budget

Here is a look at Mayor Richard Riordan’s proposed city budget for 1999-2000, which will be announced today. The $2.8-billion general fund budget is $87 million more than the 1998-99 budget.

Highlights

* No new taxes

* Increase of 157 police officers and 126 firefighters

* $12.4 million increase in reserve fund

* 21 new recreation directors

* Expanded hours at 30 libraries

* Elimination of pool admission fees for children

New city positions

By percentage of total positions added

Police and fire: 48%

Recreation and parks/zoo: 15%

Nuisance abatement/ code enforcement: 13%

Animal services: 13%

Library: 10%

Other: 1%

Source: Mayor’s office