Funds Promised for After-School Program

A week before he is scheduled to unveil what is expected to be a city budget full of cuts, Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn announced plans Monday to preserve funding for a popular after-school program for elementary school students.

“We want to continue to have a safer city,” Hahn said of his plan, which would allow LA’s BEST to expand services to an additional 500 students next year. “A big way to do that is to make sure our kids are safe.”

Founded in 1988 by Mayor Tom Bradley as a partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, LA’s BEST has become one of the city’s most popular initiatives. It also has attracted nationwide praise for helping increase attendance and improve students’ performance on standardized tests.

In each of the three years since Hahn was elected mayor, LA’s BEST has expanded and now reaches about 19,000 pupils daily at 117 schools citywide. Three years ago, the program reached 13,500 pupils at 78 schools.

Jerry Katell, who chairs the LA’s BEST governing board and strongly praised the mayor’s commitment Monday, said the program still reaches only a fraction of Los Angeles students who need after-school programs.

“It’s not as many as we’d like,” the mayor said Monday after angrily brushing aside questions from a television news crew about Councilman Bernard C. Parks’ plans to run against him in next year’s mayoral election. “But we’re glad we’re not shrinking.”

With the city of Los Angeles facing a $250-million budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year, the mayor in recent months has been preparing city leaders and community groups for significant cuts.

But Monday, he cast the LA’s BEST program as a critical public safety issue, arguing that after-school programs can hold down crime by keeping students out of trouble. “Kids make bad choices, but we don’t give them good choices,” the mayor said. “It’s not all their fault.”

LA’s BEST programs offer activities to elementary school pupils from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Under Hahn’s plan, the city would provide LA’s BEST with $1 million next year, the same level of support the city is providing this year. Combined with additional private donations, that would allow LA’s BEST to expand programs in four local schools, said Carla Sanger, the nonprofit program’s president and chief executive.