CITY COUNCIL DELAYS MERGER OF MTA POLICE INTO LAPD BY PATRICK MCGREEVY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER.

A City Council panel voted another delay Wednesday to approving the merger of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority police into the LAPD to provide more time to complete background checks that already have disqualified a large number of transit officers.

The council's Public Safety Committee postponed sending the issue to the full council after LAPD officials promised to complete their screening of MTA officers in the next 10 days.

``I am absolutely not recommending that it go to the full council until we are completely done with all the personnel, LAPD . . . background checks,'' said Councilwoman Laura Chick, the committee's chairwoman.

The merger was to take effect July 1, but some council members are concerned that large numbers of MTA officers are being disqualified from being transferred to the LAPD.

So far, of the approximately 185 MTA officers proposed to join the LAPD, 27 have been disqualified after background checks found past misconduct, according to Phil Henning, assistant general manager of the Personnel Department.

Sources say the disqualified officers were found to have been involved in misconduct including drug use, domestic violence and excessive force while on duty.

Henning told the committee that about 10 MTA officers have so far been ruled out of field duty because of medical conditions and three officers have been disqualified because of psychological problems. He could not say whether there is any duplication between the different lists of disqualified officers.

However, city officials said that with additional officers still being looked at, it appears as many as 40 of the 185 MTA officers proposed to join the LAPD may not qualify for transfers.

That is creating additional concern among City Council members, who are questioning whether the contract for the LAPD to provide 208 officers to patrol trains and buses is in the city's best interest.

``This is getting to be much cloudier than (when) it was first thought of,'' said Councilman Nate Holden, another member of the committee.

Chick said one main concern she has is that a shortfall in the number of MTA officers transferring to the LAPD may force the city to take LAPD officers out of current field assignments to cover the transit system as required by the contract.

``If we are accepting fewer than applied, you know one of my concerns is pulling people off of regular deployment,'' Chick told interim Police Chief Bayan Lewis.

However, Lewis said if the LAPD gets fewer officers than previously expected from MTA, it will be saving money on salaries. He said that money could be used to pay officers overtime to fill gaps in staffing until additional officers can be hired and trained.

The issue will be brought back to the council committee sometime in the next three weeks.