CUTS TO HIT L.A. HARD COPS, WOMEN'S PROGRAMS SLASHED.

Byline: Lisa Friedman and David M. Drucker Staff Writers

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's lean $2.57 trillion budget plan to beef up the U.S. military comes at the expense of Southern California's ability to hire more cops, help battered women and clean its drinking water.

The proposed 2006 budget slashes programs considered vital by local officials, including Los Angeles' Community Oriented Policing program, used to hire more police, and community block grants that fund low-income housing and other social services.

``This is the leanest I've ever seen,'' said E. Del Smith, Los Angeles County's lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

``Last year and the year before and the year before that I said, Boy, this is going to be tough. But I think this year really is going to be tough.''

The budget blueprint does offer reassurance for local military installations, particularly Edwards Air Force Base, which is slated to receive $37 million for a new runway and $59.6 million to replace aging base housing.

A handful of local projects are funded, including $1.9 million for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles.

There's also some good news for specific transportation projects, including the Alameda Corridor East connecting the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles. The White House has proposed $2 million for that mega-project, as well as $60 million to build a 5.9-mile light-rail transit line connecting downtown with low-income communities in East Los Angeles.

But the biggest concern to Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn and other local officials is Bush's plan to slash the $4.7 million Community Development Block Grant program that funds organizations like San Fernando Valley's Haven Hills domestic violence center.

``I don't know what we're going to do. We'll have to serve less people,'' said Betty Fisher, the head of Haven Hills, which sees 700 to 800 women and children each year.

Under Bush's proposal, the CDBG program would be reduced and consolidated with 17 other programs into a $3.71 billion grant-giving system. The goal is to eliminate duplication and waste while making sure financial help gets to the nation's most economically distressed neighborhoods.

Los Angeles County received more than $209 million from the program in 2003, the most recent figures available through the Census Bureau.

Bush also slashed the COPS program, which provides grants for state and local agencies to hire police officers, from $499 million to $22 million.

In 2004, the Los Angeles Unified School District Police Department received $3.7 million to put about 30 officers in local schools. Los Angeles officials said they had expected the federal COPS funding to run out, even as they expect to be able to spend the $231 million already allocated to the city.

``We didn't do any hiring this past year under the program and didn't expect the president to continue it this coming year,'' said Shannon Murphy, a spokeswoman for Hahn.

City officials who oversee the budget said no money was received from the federal government this past year as part of the officer-hiring effort - which involves the federal government paying 25 percent of an officer's salary up to $25,000 for the first year.

As part of the federal requirement, however, the officers have to be hired for new positions once the force gets to 9,200 officers. It now has about 9,100 officers.

And, as expected, the budget offers no money for a federal program that reimburses state and local governments for the cost of jailing criminal illegal aliens. That burden costs Los Angeles County $80 million to $100 million annually, officials say.

While wildfire protection funding through Bush's Healthy Forest initiative increased $56 million, a tree assistance program that has provided help to Southern California was zeroed out, and no funding was requested for Southern California earthquake assistance.

``It's clear to say that it's a tough budget for us,'' said Ron Waterman, a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., for the California Association of Counties.

``Clearly, if today's federal budget is any indication of what we can expect to come to California, we can expect not more from Gov. (Arnold) Schwarzenegger's allies in Washington, but we can expect less from the Bush administration,'' Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuez, D-Los Angeles, told reporters during an afternoon news conference in Sacramento.

Republican leaders said Bush's budget makes difficult but necessary choices. ``We do have to start downsizing the federal government. I think what he's done is a step in the right direction,'' said Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar.

Getting California's fair share of federal tax dollars has long been on the agenda of Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders of both parties, with all five of them scheduled to be in Washington on Feb. 17 to meet with the state's 53 congressional members to see whether the current situation can be improved.

Estimates currently peg the state's take at 77 cents for every dollar paid to Washington by California taxpayers, and Democratic leaders in Sacramento said Monday that the president's budget doesn't bode well for rectifying that imbalance.

The Schwarzenegger administration was still scrambling late Monday to determine the effects of the budget on California road improvements, but legislative Democrats were already predicting dire consequences for efforts to relieve traffic on Southern California's gridlocked freeways, fund California's federal No Child Left Behind program, and help the poor, as many community block grants and other programs are slated for elimination.

Staff Writers Rick Orlov and Jim Skeen contributed to this report.

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com

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