A Bigger, Smarter LAPD

Hiring more cops takes top priority in the proposed 2003-04 city budget that Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn released Friday. Whatever else City Hall gadflies find to criticize in a document the size of two thick phone books, they are going to have a hard time arguing against that.

Los Angeles is infamously underpoliced. With 9,128 officers, it has one for every 404 residents, the worst ratio of the nation’s five largest cities. New York City has 36,300 officers, or one for every 220 residents. Chicago and Philadelphia have ratios similar to New York City’s, and Houston has one officer for every 375 residents. With 658 homicides last year, Los Angeles claimed the title of murder capital of the country -- not the kind of accolade that attracts tourists or investors.

So despite a gloomy economy, the mayor’s budget, taking into account reassignments and attrition, promises to put 500 more cops on the street next year. How he intends to pay for them will attract the usual howls. To raise the $30 million needed, Hahn wants to boost trash rates to $10 from $6 a month for single-family homes.

True, New York, Chicago and Houston pay for trash collection through their general funds, without charging a fee at all. But compared with other cities in the region, Los Angeles’ costs would still be low. San Francisco, for example, charges $16.49 a month for a 32-gallon refuse container and $12.70 a month for a 20-gallon one, a two-tiered system designed to prompt residents to cut down on waste and recycle more. It offers a discount for low-income households; Los Angeles could do the same.

Hahn will probably face some criticism for not using the money raised by the fee increase to close landfills, long a source of outrage in the San Fernando Valley, and not shipping trash outside the city or finding other ways to dispose of it.

The main criticism, however, will come from die-hards who oppose any new taxes or fees. Which is fine -- as long as they can propose an alternative source of money to hire much-needed police officers.

Cops aren’t the only solution to crime; the mayor’s budget also includes modest boosts for parks and recreation and for the after-school program LA’s Best, even as the document cuts tree trimming, street paving and other needed services.

City employees can allay some of those cuts -- and avoid pay cuts and layoffs -- by working smarter.

Hahn points to newly formed teams of city workers from across departments who now meet to talk about neighborhood complaints. When workers brought up the problem of shoes hanging from utility lines, long considered a sign of blight and gang activity, they realized that Department of Water and Power trucks already out fixing utility lines could remove shoes while they were in the neighborhood. It’s a small thing -- but the kind of coordination that residents have long complained the city lacked.

The city needs a Police Department that works smarter too. But first it needs enough officers to do the work.