CITY HALL IN BUDGET TURMOIL.

Byline: Beth Barrett and Alexa Haussler Staff Writers

In a battle over the city's spending plans, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's top financial staffers on Wednesday accused key City Council members and city bureaucrats of being ``totally and completely irresponsible'' by tampering with dozens of programs in his proposed budget.

The council's ad hoc budget committee, headed by Councilman Mike Feuer, eliminated or put on hold funding proposed for key programs, including money to pay for 25 miles of street resurfacing, longer library hours and a new policy of lie-detector tests for police recruits.

The five-member committee, which spent 10 days reviewing the mayor's proposed budget in public hearings, will forward its recommendations to the full council Monday. But its revisions stirred up accusations that the panel hadn't given Riordan enough time to respond.

``This was a shortchanging of the public process. It clearly was a back-room deal,'' said Deputy Mayor Jennifer Roth, who oversees finance and policy issues.

Feuer defended the changes, saying many of the programs - including the street resurfacing - were not put on hold, rather were simply put into the ``unappropriated balance,'' a large pot of money that may be spent for various purposes.

He said the programs likely would not be scrapped unless the city is required to spend money from that balance for an extraordinary emergency.

The committee's plan makes a number of changes:

--Moves funding for 25 miles of street resurfacing to the unappropriated balance, which reduces the total number of miles slated to be resurfaced to 225, down from Riordan's proposal for 245 miles.

--Shifts funding for polygraph tests for all police recruits. Feuer said the Police Department has not decided whether to use sworn officers or civilians to administer the test and that the committee did not want to earmark an incorrect amount of funding.

--Reduces a proposed increase in funding for ambulance services citywide by $300,000. Feuer said the committee did not provide the funding because the department has been unable to recruit paramedics to fill the new posts.

--Moves the money to fund the mayor's proposal to expand library hours into the unappropriated budget. Feuer said the Library Department has encountered the same difficulties recruiting as the Fire Department and ``if they can hire up, they'll get the money.''

--Moves the city's emergency preparedness program under what the Mayor's Office calls ``another layer of management.'' Feuer said officials have not decided which department should house the program.

A Valley neighborhood leader called the committee's decisions ``a loss to the community,'' saying the city needs to focus on quality-of-life issues such as street repair and public safety.

``These are the things that matter most and I think will highly impact whether people support secession or not,'' said Tony Lucente, president of the Studio City Residents Association. ``In making this decision, the mayor and council should be mindful that there is no higher priority than quality of city services for people in the Valley.''

Feuer said the committee's action is only an intermediate step.

``The culmination of the extensive debate we've had so far is the council deliberation, which hasn't happened,'' he said.

The committee approved $78.2 million in increases - some of them technicalities - to dozens of city programs in the mayor's budget, while decreasing other funds by about $70 million for a net $7.8 million increase.

Feuer said the mayor's staff underestimated the cost of such items as petroleum and workers' compensation.