Calculating true homeland security costs proves elusive. (Up Front).

How safe do you want to feel?

If more than $100 million for homeland security in L.A. lets you sleep better than, say, $16 million, the city is more than happy to oblige.

In touting what has been spent on homeland security since the 2001 terrorist attacks, and in using those numbers to push for federal funding, city officials have reclassified a number of previously budgeted police, fire and safety expenditures under the security rubric.

City officials are using $108 million as the amount already spent to secure the city, its landmarks, ports and airports.

It's an impressive number, but a little misleading.

In all, $63.5 million of the money city officials are attributing to homeland security has gone to salaries and overtime pay for city and airport employees - an expenditure that in large part was already accounted for in the city's budget.

Also included in the homeland security accounting is $3 million in salaries and overtime at the Department of Transportation, used predominantly for traffic officers who took over for police that had been shifted to LAX.

Most of what's designated homeland security costs were already budgeted, according to Ellen Sandt, L.A.'s assistant city administrative officer, and have simply been recast.

So when city officials talk about those expenses, they are including the $1.4 million the Fire Department spent to send an urban search and rescue team to New York immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks--money later reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

They are also including security at the central library and its 67 branches, where 38 unarmed security guards operate in rotating shifts at an annual cost of $1.9 million (there are 13 security positions unfilled).

Every one of those positions existed before the terrorist attacks, according to city librarian Susan Kent. "This has been the practice of the library department for years," she said. "It's nothing new. We have done nothing additional for homeland security."

Nominal appropriations

According to Sandt, money designated for homeland security breaks out in the following way:

* $50.9 million to the airport, primarily for salaries.

* $20.7 million to LAPD for salaries, including $9.7 million for its anti-terrorism unit.

* $14.1 million to Department of Water and Power for salaries, contract security and at least one new helicopter.

* $3 million to the Department of Transportation for diverting parking officers to LAX when terminals were shut down.

* $1.7 million to General Services Department for security at city-owned buildings.

* $1.35 million to Fire Department for its work in New York after Sept. 11.

* $190,000 to the Harbor Department for port personnel salaries.

Nearly all of those costs were already accounted for in the existing city budget.

The LAPD has gained a handful of new positions since Sept. 11, 2001, although not enough to cover homeland security needs. That has forced the department to transfer an unspecified amount of personnel for those tasks, according to Lt. Horace Frank, a department spokesman.

Included in that budgeting was the $2.4 million spent from March 18-23 to cover duties related to the outbreak of the war against Iraq, such as manning the emergency operations center, sending extra patrols to inspect sites deemed to. be prime targets for terrorists and handling anti-war demonstrations.

Another $656,208 was spent during that period on overtime for officers assigned to LAX.

"You can certainly say the threat of terrorism has cost the city more money," said City Councilman Jack Weiss, who has made homeland security issues a priority. "But I wouldn't view that as homeland security expenditures. I would view that as the cost of doing business in the new world."

But Matt Middlebrook, deputy mayor for policy and communications, said the designation was appropriate.

"When we go to war in Iraq the week before the Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland, the amount of overtime to pay police officers is hard to ignore," he said.

Indeed, said Sandt, whatever the city has had to spend on homeland security has come from city coffers, since the city has not seen a single dollar of federal aid since the terrorist attacks.

The city, for example, cobbled together $6 million for LAPD protective suits by transferring $2.4 million from the forfeited asset trust fund, which gets its money from police selling the belongings of some convicted criminals; $1.7 million from a public works trust fund normally used for construction improvements; and $1.5 million from the general fund.

Washington just appropriated $45 million to help California pay for homeland security, of which $12.4 million is slated to come to L.A. But the mayor's office doesn't know when the $12.4 million will actually arrive here or whether it may even be used to reimburse the city for priority items it decided to fund itself, said Hahn spokeswoman Julie Wong.

"I don't see much to be grateful for," said Weiss. "We've been shortchanged. Wyoming got $10 per capita in homeland security funds. The city of L.A. got $1.50."