Police, fire fare better in budgets

Despite a sluggish economy that is slowing tax revenues, officials in Los Angeles county and city governments Monday proposed budgets that call for substantial increases in public safety.

City officials are planning to raise fees, cut services and impose employee furloughs to help pay for the added officers, while the county is holding off on major reductions but warning that falling home values and state and federal aid cutbacks will probably force painful belt-tightening later.

The county unveiled a $21.9-billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 that is down $588 million, or 2.6%, from the current year’s budget. The city’s $7-billion proposal reflects a $193-million increase.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s proposed city budget seeks to eliminate a $406-million shortfall through austerity measures that include the elimination of 767 jobs -- some possibly layoffs -- and $90 million in fee increases on golf, pet adoptions and other city services.

County Chief Executive Officer William T. Fujioka, acknowledging that the county’s hardest decisions will come later, said that for now he is proposing delaying maintenance of county facilities and equipment as well as eliminating 35 vacant positions -- but no layoffs -- to help trim the budget. He is not proposing any significant fee hikes or service reductions yet.

“This county, from my perspective, is in very, very good shape,” Fujioka said. “We will live within our means.”

Still left undone, however, is a plan to close a $197-million deficit in its budget for health services next year, and an estimated $500 million in diminished state and federal funding has yet to be factored in to Fujioka’s proposal.

In a sign of measures to come, Fujioka has directed his staff to consider a modest property tax increase under the voter-mandated Measure B to fund county trauma centers. That step might raise up to $40 million a year.

To boost public safety, the county is proposing to add 31 deputy sheriffs in unincorporated areas, 22 positions in an anti-gang program, and refurbish some jails and build a fire station in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The winners in the proposed county budget are worried that the state and federal budget problems will cause their victories to evaporate.

“That’s my biggest fear,” said Sheriff Lee Baca, whose budget under the Fujioka proposal would grow $81 million to $2.46 billion, including $10 million to improve healthcare for inmates in county jails and $5.6 million for increased patrols in unincorporated areas.

At the city, public safety also was one of the few winners, along with street repairs and new traffic signals. The mayor budgeted money to continue hiring 1,000 police officers in order to rise above 10,000 officers total, the highest in city history.

But some departments would have leaner times ahead. In addition to the city job cuts, Villaraigosa’s proposed budget calls for each employee to take six mandatory furloughs, or unpaid days off, in the coming year.

“There are some [employees] who would rather lay off more people and not share the pain across the workforce,” Villaraigosa said. “We think it’s better that everybody participates, that everybody shares the burden.”

Furloughs would not apply to police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers, and the city’s employee unions would have to sign off on the proposal. The plan -- and the overall budget -- also must be approved by the City Council.

In the plan released Monday, the mayor also proposed raiding a $56-million fund originally intended to build city parking structures, and he called for $90 million in increases for trash, golf, parking, recreation, development and animal adoption fees.

The new funding will help to compensate for a decrease in revenue streams from the economic downturn: sales taxes, business taxes and especially documentary transfer taxes, the levy paid when real property changes owners.

One union leader said the city’s residents should not have to cope with both higher fees and service reductions that will come with mandatory furloughs.

Mandatory furloughs would generate $23 million, just above the amount the city will spend this year on pay increases for 22,000 municipal employees. That package of pay increases was approved by the mayor in December.

Villaraigosa said he never would have signed off on such a salary agreement had he been aware that tax revenue and the housing market were about to take such major downturns.

“If we had known in . . . August what we know today, we never would have approved these [salary] hikes,” he said.

Meanwhile, the budget also would impose cuts at the city’s parks, libraries and animal shelters. Eight regional libraries -- including those in Hollywood, North Hollywood, Reseda, North Hills and San Pedro -- would no longer be open Sunday, under the budget proposal. Hours at animal shelters would be reduced and maintenance of park and recreation facilities would decrease.

The city’s 372 playgrounds would be cleaned once a day, instead of twice, said Karen Sisson, city administrative officer.

Maintenance crews would mow and clean the city’s 390 parks once every three weeks instead of once every 10 days.

The mayor’s budget would eliminate 79 park workers, 36 library employees and 60 law clerks and legal secretaries in City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo’s office.

Delgadillo spokesman Nick Velasquez voiced dismay about the proposal.

“This is of great concern to us, since this is a time when public safety is critical,” Velasquez said.

Still, Villaraigosa disavowed one fee hike that has had library lovers up in arms in recent weeks: a $1 charge on transfers and book reservations devised by the mayor’s five appointees on the Library Commission.

“I didn’t make that proposal. The Library Commission did,” the mayor said.

A spokesman for the Library Department said they probably will drop the proposal.

The transportation budget would receive 7% more money, some of which would be used to install left-turn signals. And the Bureau of Street Services would see its budget go up 3%, allowing it to repair 60 additional miles of streets.

The financial boost would allow the city to reduce its street repair backlog from 63 years to roughly 40 years, said Bill Robertson, general manager of the Bureau of Street Services.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Proposed budgets at a glance

LOS ANGELES COUNTY HIGHLIGHTS

Public safety:

* $3.9 million to fund 22 new positions to run the sheriff’s Operation Safe Streets, a gang enforcement program.

* $5.6 million for 31 new sheriff’s deputies to increase patrols in unincorporated areas.

* $6.5 million for 43 new positions for the Fire Department.

* $700,000 for new positions to prosecute high-tech crimes in the district attorney’s office.

Social services:

* $30.6 million added for homebound elderly and disabled residents.

* $3.7 million to handle a higher caseload in the Department of Children and Family Service’s Adoption Assistance Program.

* Six new positions, funded through children’s department’s savings in other areas, to investigate deaths within the county’s child welfare system.

Health services:

* A $197-million deficit in Department of Health Services, due mainly to shrinking state and federal funding, necessitating the loss of 111 vacant positions.

* A $7.2-million increase for the Department of Mental Health to treat substance abuse disorders.

* A $800,000 increase for the Department of Public Health for methamphetamine prevention, education and outreach services.

Building projects:

* $523 million in public safety improvements, including new jails at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, a new fire station in the Santa Clarita Valley, expansion of the coroner’s office and a new animal shelter in the east Antelope Valley.

* $194 million for new community rooms and pools at various county parks.

* $87 million for new libraries in unincorporated areas of the San Gabriel Valley, La Crescenta and Topanga Canyon.

* $194 million for the construction of a mental health urgent care center in Sylmar and a new outpatient clinic in Lancaster.

LOS ANGELES CITY HIGHLIGHTS

Increases:

* $97 million increase for the Police Department, including 284 additional police officers.

* $6 million added to gang prevention and intervention programs in the mayor’s office.

* $22 million increase for the Fire Department to maintain current staffing levels.

* $2.4 million increase in Planning Department budget to draft new community plans.

* $4.6 million increase in Bureau of Street Services to repair 60 additional miles of streets.

Cutbacks:

* Eight regional libraries no longer to be open Sundays.

* Six animal shelters will reduce public hours from 55 per week to 40; newly built Northeast Valley shelter will not open to the public for at least a year and will be used to house animals with possible behavioral issues or involved in cruelty cases.

* City attorney’s office to lose 60 support staff, including law clerks and legal secretaries.

* Recreation and Parks to lose 79 positions, mainly maintenance workers; city’s skateboard parks no longer will be staffed.

Sources: County of Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles