L.A. weighs trash fee hike

City officials are considering another major increase in trash fees paid by homeowners and residents of small apartment buildings in order to preserve Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s plan to hire 1,000 police officers.

The city has already hiked monthly trash fees from $11 to $26 over the last two years, to pay for the ongoing expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department.

But with a $460-million shortfall projected for 2008-09 and Villaraigosa determined to keep hiring officers, officials are contemplating a proposal to raise the fee to as much as $38, said Assistant City Administrative Officer Ray Ciranna.

“Going to the higher fees is not going to make everyone happy,” said Ciranna, who promised to first look at increasing charges for recreation programs, animal licenses, recreation programs, city parking spaces and admission to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Currently, the city subsidizes the cost of trash collection. The $38-a-month fee represents the actual cost of trash removal in the next fiscal year.

When the LAPD hiring plan was unveiled in 2006, Villaraigosa called for trash fees to be increased gradually over four years -- from $11 to $28 per month -- to help fund the expansion. But a year later, in an attempt to keep up with hiring, the mayor and the City Council agreed to increase the monthly sanitation fee at a faster rate, bringing it to $26 -- $2 shy of the amount planned for July 2009.

Now, with the LAPD hiring plan still at the halfway mark, Villaraigosa is looking to balance the budget through more severe methods, such as spending cuts and layoffs, and by urging employees to take five “furloughs” -- unpaid days off -- by June 30.

Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo said the mayor asked Ciranna to identify the full cost of the LAPD expansion and various ways of paying for it, including new trash fees.

City Controller Laura Chick said Villaraigosa mentioned the idea Wednesday during a meeting on the budget crisis, saying he was weighing whether to charge homeowners the full cost of sanitation pickup.

“My understanding is this is very much on the table,” she said.

The city’s elected officials have long argued that it should not subsidize the cost of trash pickup for homeowners and renters in apartments with fewer than five units. Still, one taxpayer advocate said another major increase in sanitation fees would anger ratepayers.

“They will once again feel that they have been misled, and it’s going to hit them very sharply in the pocketbook,” said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Both Ciranna and Deputy Mayor Sally Choi said the city never expected the trash fees to cover the full cost of the LAPD expansion. “I think it was really only intended to jump-start the hiring process and get this thing going,” Ciranna said.

With so much unpleasant budget news coming out of City Hall, the mayor and the council appear eager to outdo each other in the budget-cutting arena.

Villaraigosa held a news conference Thursday to thank his staffers for taking the greatest number of furlough days in city government -- 58. The council and the controller’s office, he said, had taken zero.

“As you can see, some departments have responded well,” said Villaraigosa, praising the library department, the city attorney’s office and his own staff. “Other departments have had less than a stellar participation.”

Council President Eric Garcetti responded by announcing that the council will cut its office budget by $1.2 million -- the equivalent of 4,046 furlough days.

Chick said that by March 1, the furlough plan had generated roughly $98,000 in savings -- far less than the $20 million originally sought by Villaraigosa.

Chick also pointed out that the mayor and council signed off on a lucrative five-year package of employee pay increases just before the budget crisis hit.

“This is one strange way to try and balance the budget, if you ask me,” Chick said. “You give lollapalooza raises across the board to city employees one minute, and then the next minute you ask them to take time off.”

Meanwhile, one neighborhood leader assailed city officials for even considering another trash fee increase.

Joe Connolly, president of the Carthay Square Neighborhood Assn. near the Fairfax District, said Villaraigosa and others at City Hall should do a better job of managing municipal finances.

“If this was any Fortune 500 company, they would be fired,” Connolly said. “We have to take these politicians out of it and have a professional group of people running decisions.”

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david.zahniser@latimes.com

Times staff writer Duke Helfand contributed to this report.