LAPD’s Compressed Workweek Could Be Delayed

A court-appointed monitor overseeing reform of the LAPD has asked for assurances that Mayor James K. Hahn’s proposed compressed work schedule for police officers will not hinder required improvements to the department, officials said Monday.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo supported the monitor’s request, and asked that a consultant’s study be expanded to consider whether a longer workday for officers will increase liability for the city.

As a result, the City Council’s Public Safety Committee recommended Monday that consultant George J. Sullivan expand a $150,000 general study to examine the issues raised by Delgadillo and the monitor, Michael Cherkasky. The panel also directed Sullivan to study Hahn’s proposal, rather than compressed work schedules in general.

Sullivan said the Oct. 20 starting date for Hahn’s plan should be delayed. He said his firm would need another month to do all the work.

Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said he would support waiting for the study to be completed in November before implementing the new work schedule, which would have some officers working three days a week, 12 hours a day.

Others would work four 10-hour days, while the remainder would work traditional eight-hour shifts.

Hahn argued against the delay and said he hopes to provide a written response to Cherkasky this week that shows the new work schedule would have no negative impact on reform.

“No one was a bigger champion of the consent decree than I was,” Hahn said. “There is absolutely no impact on implementing the consent decree by changing the hours officers work.”

Cherkasky was appointed by a federal judge to oversee reforms agreed to by the city and the U.S. Justice Department to head off a federal lawsuit over civil rights abuses by LAPD officers. The consent decree outlines reforms that the LAPD must implement, such as a computerized tracking system to identify problem officers.

In a letter released Monday by city officials, Cherkasky cited claims by an unidentified “high-ranking officer” of the LAPD and a City Council member that the new work schedule “would prevent the city of Los Angeles from successfully performing its obligations under the consent decree.”

Specifically, Cherkasky said, the claim was made that officers working fewer days would not be “sufficiently in touch with the community to effectuate the intent of the consent decree.” There are also concerns that the LAPD would be unable to administer the major changes required of the consent decree while implementing a major new work schedule.

“As I am uninformed about the ‘proposed’ work shift change and, moreover, what impact such change might have on the implementation of the consent decree, I must ask the parties to determine whether, in your opinion, the proposed work schedule will, to any extent, preclude implementation of the consent decree,” Cherkasky wrote in the Sept. 24 letter addressed to the mayor and the council.

Cherkasky declined to comment Monday.

Hahn disputed the idea that officers will be unable to develop close ties with the public if they work fewer days per week. “I think if you have officers who are materially better off with improved morale, they will interface better with the public,” Hahn said.

In a letter to the council’s Public Safety Committee, Delgadillo supported Cherkasky’s request.

He also asked that the study be expanded to consider how longer workdays might affect liability claims and workers’ compensation claims involving officer injuries.

Hahn cited the experience in Santa Ana, which uses a compressed schedule, where officers had fewer public complaints, traffic accidents, shootings and injuries.

During a meeting Monday with a group of Times editors and reporters, Parks sounded a note of caution about implementing a flexible work schedule without a thorough evaluation of the consequences.

Parks did not explicitly criticize Hahn’s plan, noting that he promised the mayor he wouldn’t debate the issue in the press. But the chief added that the impact of officers working longer hours and fewer days had to be examined in the context of the city’s stepped-up safety measures, the implementation of the federal consent decree and the possibility of the nation going to war.

“Until all those things are taken into account, I think we have to make a very judicious decision as to how does the scheduling of people impact safety of communities,” Parks said.

He added that the study being produced by consultants hired by the City Council to examine different work schedules would provide a lot of those answers, and expressed support for waiting for the study to be completed before implementing a new schedule.

A working group formed by the Police Commission hopes to evaluate Hahn’s plan, with Sullivan’s help, in time for the new work schedule to go into effect Oct. 20 at the Hollywood and Central divisions.

Hahn said the working group can move ahead with implementing the plan even if the consultant’s work is incomplete.