Mayor Karen Bass’s proposed $3.24 billion LAPD budget received mixed reviews Thursday as the city council’s budget and finance committee began reviewing her spending plan.
The mayor wants to add $87 million to the police budget from the current fiscal year. That would bring the LAPD’s share of the total city budget to nearly 25%; it would represent 44% of all discretionary funds.
“My full support is with this department in restoring not only the number of officers but building back this department,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who chairs the committee. The LAPD has shrunk by nearly 1,000 officers since before the start of the pandemic, to about 9,100.
At the heart of the mayor’s plan is to conduct 13 police academy classes with 60 recruits each over the next fiscal year. Counting for attrition, she hopes to add 400 police officers to the department.
Councilmember Tim McOsker asked LAPD Chief Michel Moore for a “reality check on that.”
“When was the last time we had a 60-person class?” he asked. Moore said it hasn’t happened since before COVID-19 hit, citing a smaller pool of people who want to go into law enforcement.
“We have to be the best recruiters in America because we are in a scarce market,” the chief said.
Bass’s budget would include a $15,000 hiring bonus for each new officer. Moore said he also hopes to speed the hiring process for potential new recruits as well as to hire back recently retired officers—- something allocated for in the mayor’s blueprint.
Moore also told the committee that he wants money for about 220,000 more overtime hours than what was in the mayor’s budget, arguing he needs it for crime suppression efforts.
The mayor’s LAPD budget is expected to run into greater opposition on the full city…
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