EDITORIAL : A BAD DEAL ALL AROUND THE VALLEY IS SHORTCHANGED, BUT IT ISN'T ALONE.

THE Valley does not get its fair share.

San Fernando Valley residents and civic leaders have suspected that for a long time. The view from this side of the hill was that City Hall didn't give the Valley its full portion of services, based on population and need.

But hard evidence was impossible to find. Statistics comparing the Valley to the rest of Los Angeles were either said to be non-existent or too deeply buried in the bureaucracy to dig out.

Now, thanks to the work of Daily News reporter Beth Barrett, a special report published in today's editions - after a months-long investigation - details the actual numbers.

The findings speak for themselves. The Valley really has been shortchanged for years in many ways. A few examples: paramedic response time is dangerously slower than in other parts of the city; street sweeping occurs less often; fewer dollars are provided for public recreation programs; and don't expect the same level of police protection as other parts of the city.

But here is the real shocker: The Valley is not alone.

The rest of Los Angeles isn't getting a fair shake, either. The findings reveal that almost all areas get less than they should in one service category or another.

Until now, most L.A. residents had no way of knowing that. Besides having no hard figures, the public didn't know the city's decision-making procedures and allocation methods.

Now, using these new numbers - numbers City Hall never produced on its own - the public can make its own comparisons. The public can see how other areas of L.A. are shortchanged in various ways, from less tree trimming to a smaller percentage of alleys cleaned annually.

Taken as a whole, the statistics point to one obvious, dramatic conclusion: No one is getting a fair share. All regions of the city have that in common. And residents of all regions of the city have a common interest in forming a working partnership to get to the bottom of this mystifying misallocation of municipal services, and to come up with a better solution.

But the report today in the Daily News is just a starting point. More still has to be uncovered.

In particular, there is the matter of where 25 cents of every taxpayer dollar goes - the one-fourth of city funds that are spent for the centralized bureaucracy of city government. For every 10 city workers, nine are stationed downtown. Only one in 10 is posted in the field. That's a pitifully small number spread around the city where most people actually live and work.

Wouldn't residents in every part of the city enjoy better access to their public servants, and derive more benefits from those public jobs, if city departments were decentralized?

In other words, can anyone say that the thousands of jobs in the centralized bureaucracy at City Hall really serve far-flung Lake View Terrace, Chatsworth, San Pedro and Pacific Palisades as well as they serve nearby Bunker Hill? Although a smattering of city workers are assigned to field offices, there is every reason to believe that residents of outlying neighborhoods get less service and have more difficulty gaining access to City Hall.

Yet, the questions don't stop there. It's important for community leaders and responsible citizens to probe even deeper by asking if all those thousands of city jobs - especially the ones in centralized offices - are needed in the first place.

Could municipal government operate just as well, or perhaps better, if it were downsized and managed more efficiently?

Some already have raised that question. One is David Fleming, a city fire commissioner and a leader of city charter reform efforts, who said: ``I think the key question we have to face is do we need the size of central bureaucracy that we have to deliver services?''

Thoughtful analysis of the city's circumstances, in conjunction with appropriate citizen action, might convince city leaders that there's no pressing need for multimillion-dollar upgrades on older public buildings downtown - and that there's plenty of room for employees in field offices.

Of course, that's only one of the policy issues arising from this in-depth investigation of the distribution of the city's limited resources and services. Right now, the biggest question is whether L.A. can justify keeping such a large central bureaucracy in a city that sprawls over 468 square miles and has 3.5 million residents. That issue is on the table for all to see, and coming up with an answer is the next challenge for Los Angeles.