EDITORIAL BUDGET TREACHERY STATE AND CITY LEADERS PASS THEIR DEFICITS DOWN.

WHEREVER you look, be it Sacramento or downtown Los Angeles, budget treachery abounds.

Earlier this year, Gov. Gray Davis warned that in light of lean times, the state could no longer afford to make ``backfill'' payments to cities and counties to offset lost revenue from the 1998 cut in the state's vehicle license fee.

The warning set off a panic among local government officials across the state, who lobbied furiously for maintaining the backfill.

Eventually, Davis backed off his plan to end the funding. State legislators assured the public that whatever happened in California's stormy budget process, the local funding portion of the VLF would continue.

Meanwhile, attorneys for Davis and Controller Steve Westly concocted a plan by which the VLF could be tripled without legislative approval. With the extra $4 billion the tax hike would provide, the state wouldn't need to backfill VLF payments at all - the cash for cities and towns would already be on hand.

Or would it?

State leaders are now considering plans to raid more than $1 billion of VLF funds designated for local government to cover their own budget crisis - never mind the budget crises affecting most every city or county throughout the state.

For average Californians, it's the worst of both possible worlds: Higher car taxes and decreased support for local government.

For the city of Los Angeles, the cut would translate to $75 million in lost revenues next year, and as much as $30 million to $40 million a year after that.

And that points to some budget treachery closer to home.

When Mayor James Hahn issued his proposed city budget earlier this spring, it was, by all accounts, unduly rosy. The plan assumed an improving economy and steady funding from the state.

The council, to its credit, took a more cautious view, and postponed by six months Hahn's plan to hire 320 extra cops beyond the 400 mutually agreed upon. That saved $69 million.

The council, which had to override a mayoral veto to get its way, was right. Its savings will help offset whatever rip-off comes down from Sacramento.

For his part, Hahn was wrong and, worse, reckless as the latest state plan to cut funding to local government proves beyond a doubt. Now, city leaders are warning of massive cuts in public services despite their agreement on raising fees sharply. There's talk about cutting hours at city libraries and not replacing cops who leave or retire from the LAPD.

It's the same sort of unscrupulous budget-making that's taking place at the state level.

Like legislators in Sacramento, who seem content to dump their deficits onto the state's cities and counties, Los Angeles' elected leaders seem all too happy to pass the buck along to the city's residents.

Neither in Sacramento nor downtown is there any consideration of say, reducing the size of the government payroll, or suspending pay raises that have long outpaced the rate of inflation, or cutting benefits that far exceed anything in the private sector.

For the politicians, bureaucratic excess and inefficiency are a given. Their only question is how to force the cost onto the public.

That's where the treachery comes into play.