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#  Inside the May 22 Council Budget Debate: Cuts, Restorations, and Priorities

May 30 2025

Written by Connie Acosta.

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POLICE BUDGET - The following Police Department services were restored as weighed necessary by the City Budget &amp; Finance Committee on May 20, a few days prior to the May 22, 2025 Council Hearing on the Recommendations of the Budget and Finance Committee Relative to the Mayor’s Proposed Budget for FY 2025-26.

133 critical civilian services were restored and adopted at Council Hearing with 15 votes. 480 Police Officers and 403 civilians were required to be laid off, said Tim McOsker, Councilmember for District 15 and City Budget and Finance Committee member (BFC) while addressing Michel Moore Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, at the May 22,2025 Council Hearing. “You came in good faith and gave us the number of 133 critical civilian positions that could not be backfilled, and if not restored would debilitate the department to not do its job.”

You need to understand where we are with this Budget; maybe hire 240 or so new recruits, but not today, maybe by mid-year; we’ll keep working together. Whatever comes out of this hearing, the Police will know with what numbers you’ll have to make a Deployment Plan, said McOsker.

From the 400 layoffs in the Police, the reduction of new officers didn’t even fill the gap. We needed to find money, so we reached to the Fire Department to add to the funds, to save 133 civilian authority positions, said Bob Blumenfield, Councilmember for District 3 and Vice Chair of City BFC. “I want to see as many recruits as possible to get us to the 10,000 number. But as we were looking at the Budget that removed 400 civilians, the department would not be able to function, so we leveraged our officers by restoring civilian positions to get them out in to the street.” I support the budget. Ultimately, I want to see the recruits’ numbers higher, closed Blumenfield.

The Jobs restored were for eight-months funding of $16.42M which includes direct and indirect cost. The list below identifies the number of restored civilian positions and their functions:

· Eight Forensic Print Specialist IIIs

· One Forensic Print Specialist IV

· Three Fingerprint Identification Expert Is

· 25 Criminalist IIs

· Four Criminalist IIIs

· Five Supervising Criminalists

· 10 Photographer IIIs

· 17 Property Officers

· Three Senior Property Officers

· One Principal Property Officer

· One Municipal Police Officer III

· 15 Equipment Mechanics

· Two Auto Body Builder and Repairers

· Three Garage Attendants

· Two Automotive Supervisors

· Four Communications Electricians

· Three Programmer/Analyst IVs

· Eight Systems Analysts

· One Systems Administrator II

· Three Senior Systems Analyst Is

· Three Senior Systems Analyst IIs

· Two Police Special Investigators

· One Chief Clerk Police

· Eight Accounting Clerks

It’s a balancing act, said Chief Moore. “Patrol is the back bone of the department and every- thing else is important as well as the other investigator functions.”

There are 468 of city streets that need to be patrolled, how are we going to look at maximizing the efficiencies from top-down to provide that support at street level? asked Monica Rodriguez, Councilwoman for District 7, of the Chief of Police.

“I recognize, the difficulty in hiring, and attrition. And we are losing a lot of civilians at this juncture that is going to put us at tilt. We need to ramp up of personnel, we are looking at a lot of …” Ms. Rodriguez continued.

Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez added, “There has been a growth of specialized programs that have taken away patrols from the department to be available in a lot of our divisions. We need this department to be an example of efficiency from top down in the reorganization to assure that street level support.”

 Captain Moore responded, the department will do its best very best to keep Los Angeles safe.

A possible example of a line item in the approved Budget that Ms. Rodriguez was talking about in the paragraph above: Create a new Unappropriated Balance line item ($4,378,000) for additional overtime patrols in the vicinity of A Bridge Home or interim housing sites, \*including Tiny Homes. The LAPD will report on an expenditure plan and overtime usage report that provides further details on allocations, consistent with the instructions detailed in Exhibit H. (Item 90. Page 29.)

Presently, there is a double percent increase of people who want to be police officers of this fine organization \[Los Angeles Police Department\], compared to the year 2022, said the Chief.

You are in a good position, responded Councilmember McOsker. “Today, we can’t hire new recruits, but maybe by mid-year.”

Note: Quotations and Funding data were taken from the Council Hearing on the Recommendations of the Budget and Finance Committee Relative to the Mayor’s Proposed Budget for FY 2025-26, May 22, 25, and 25-0600\_misc\_BudgetRecap\_05-22-25.pdf

*(Connie Acosta is a writer and a board member of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council System.)*

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