EDITORIAL\A $1 billion surprise\Report on LAPD's need for more space raises serious questions.

LOS ANGELES Mayor Richard Riordan came down with a serious case of sticker shock last week when he received a consultant's draft report on the Police Department's need for more building space.

It's no wonder. Consultant Larry Kosmont said that the city will need to spend up to $1 billion over the next 20 years to properly house its growing police department. He recommended, for starters, that the city put a bond issue in the neighborhood of $300 million to $432 million on the November ballot.

Riordan promptly challenged Kosmont's recommendations, saying "we have, for example, substations which are only partly occupied." He promised to question the $1 billion estimate "all the way up and down the line."

Many taxpayers no doubt feel the same way the mayor does. After all, the voters last June narrowly defeated a $171 million bond issue (it required a two-thirds majority to pass) to build four new police stations, including a long-needed (and promised) sixth station in the San Fernando Valley. That bond issue was supposed to address essential needs. So why all of a sudden is there a need for a bond issue of as much as $432 million?

Here are some responses from the draft report: The city will need an additional 500,000 square feet of space by 1998 to accommodate plans to add more than 2,800 officers to the LAPD, bringing the department's strength to 10,455 officers. Parker Center should be replaced, since the expense of repairing the run-down downtown headquarters would exceed the cost of a new building.

We aren't convinced that it makes sense to build another administrative palace to replace Parker Center.

One of the problems with big bureaucracies nearly everywhere is their tendency to grow at the center, at the expense of units in the field that are supposed to get the job done. The mayor and the council, therefore, should take a hard look at the LAPD's administrative structure.

If it turns out that more decentralization is in order (and that seems to be the trend these days), the space needs of the LAPD could change as well - and possibly result in significant cost reductions, too.

We aren't critical of the decision to make the study; on the contrary, it was the responsible and businesslike way to go.

But the study is just the beginning. The mayor and the council now must look beyond the numbers and take a hard look at the assumptions upon which they were based on before reaching a decision on a massive LAPD construction program. If they don't, the already skeptical voters just might say "no" this time around.