LAPD Says Attrition, Reform Pose Threat to Its Resources

A Los Angeles Police Department analysis warns that the combined effects of attrition, a politically popular transfer of officers from patrol duties to community relations, and a federally imposed set of police reforms could lengthen emergency response times, jeopardize other city services and cost taxpayers more than $50 million a year.

Some police officials, in fact, believe that even those estimates are conservative. One LAPD look at the budget implications of attrition and reform concludes that implementing and monitoring the reform agreement alone could require more than 450 police officers. With the department facing a shortfall in its overall recruitment, that could pinch patrol and other services provided by the LAPD, police officials said.

The LAPD has about 9,100 police officers, half of whom are assigned to the field, meaning patrol officers and supervisors outside police headquarters.

Despite the LAPD’s dire predictions, however, some city political leaders reacted with skepticism Monday. Some viewed the department analysis as exaggerated and motivated by the desire to scuttle the proposed deal with the federal government, while others insisted that the city has the money to pay for reform and the other programs.

The department’s latest analysis was sent to key City Council members Friday, days before the council is expected to receive the proposed consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice that would head off the federal government’s threat to sue the city over an alleged “pattern or practice” of police abuse.

The Police Department’s report, signed by LAPD chief of staff David J. Gascon on behalf of Chief Bernard C. Parks, says the department is 240 officers short of its anticipated strength--with that number expected to grow to 551 next year. It estimates that 300 officers more will be needed to implement the consent decree.

Combined, that comes to 851 positions that could be taken from patrol and either left vacant or shifted to other duties. Rather than allow those jobs to go unfilled, Parks proposes boosting overtime pay to the department so that officers could work longer weeks. To do that would cost $56.2 million a year, according to LAPD estimates.

There are other lurking changes with budget implications. Officials say the LAPD will lose 168 patrol officers to comply with political demands that Parks restart the popular senior lead officer program. That program is not part of the negotiations with the federal government, but it enjoys strong support among council members, and Mayor Richard Riordan backs it as well.

Meanwhile, a computerized officer-tracking system that the Justice Department wants the LAPD to construct to better monitor its officers will cost millions more. Estimates on the cost of that system range from $13 million to $30 million.

Although the warnings and price tags are sure to raise the stakes of this week’s debate over the consent decree, some officials sympathetic to the chief’s concerns nevertheless believe that his staff is overstating the risk in some respects.

The decree, for instance, will require the department to beef up Internal Affairs, taking some officers out of the field to do that. But at the same time, the investigations that those officers will handle will no longer fall on the shoulders of field sergeants, thus freeing up more of their time for regular police work.

Such subtleties are not reflected in the letter to the council.

Moreover, the analysis does not take into account the savings that the city is realizing by fielding a smaller police force. Smaller Police Academy classes and fewer new hires hamper the LAPD’s patrol strength, but they also mean fewer dollars spent on police. That savings could be turned back toward paying for overtime.

Councilman Mike Feuer, head of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, said he has requested the LAPD cost analysis to get a handle on how the drop-off in police hiring has affected the department. The LAPD is replacing only two out of three officers who resign or retire. Although its allocated strength is more than 10,000 officers, it actually has only 9,100 in uniform, and that number is expected to fall to 8,700 in 2002.

If those trends hold up, they would severely undercut the LAPD buildup carried out under Riordan--wiping out much of his most vaunted accomplishment as mayor.

On Monday, Feuer said his staff was analyzing Parks’ figures.

“Clearly, the consent decree is going to cost money,” Feuer said. “We knew that. Again, it goes back to what has been true since the inception of this: We don’t have a choice. If we don’t make these reforms under the consent decree, we will get sued by the DOJ and loose, and we will have failed to put in place the necessary police reforms.”

Nevertheless, Feuer said, the decree should not be viewed as a “blank check” for police spending.

“We have to closely scrutinize the Police Department’s proposal to implement the consent decree,” Feuer said “It has to be cost effective. . . . We do have a meaningful shortfall in the hiring of officers.”

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, a proponent of police reform and the consent decree, said he wants to make sure that the department’s estimates were not submitted to torpedo proposed police reforms.

“We need to emphatically assert that reform is nonnegotiable,” Ridley-Thomas said. “Certainly, it will cost a lot less in terms of moral as well as financial capital to the city than continuing to allow abuses in the Police Department to go unchecked. I would hope that the issue of cost is not being used as a way to prevent reform from taking place.”

Nevertheless, Ridley-Thomas said he shares Parks’ concerns on the redeployment of the senior lead officer program, once a mainstay of community policing but derided in some quarters for what some see as its inefficient use of police officers.

“Plainly and simply, Our mission must be reform and not accommodating 160-odd officers who ultimately end up providing personal services for key constituents in certain parts of the city.”