EDITORIAL TOUGH LOVE FOR L.A. CITY LEADERS MUST CUT GOVERNMENT COSTS AND IMPROVE SERVICES.

AS the reality of a prolonged budget crisis sinks in at City Hall, city officials have begun eyeing their sacred cows like a starving vegetarian.

About the only thing those at City Hall have done to respond so far to the three years of economic hard times is to slash public services and jack up fees - a prescription for further deterioration of the quality of life. Last week, they did it again, cutting tree trimming, street paving and other services. But even the mayor and the self-styled new breed of City Council members seem to have awakened to the fact that tougher love is needed.

They talked about the possibility of layoffs and renegotiating employee contracts they just approved with healthy raises.

Layoffs? Givebacks from workers? Those words are blasphemous in the lexicon of a City Hall that was bought and paid for by public employee unions and their symbiotic allies among lobbyists, contractors, consultants and public relations deceivers.

But the realization that the city might face a $225 million shortfall next year has them worried that they just might end up on the junk heap of history, like their mentor in pay-to-play politics, recalled Gov. Gray Davis.

Mayor James Hahn said he wants to reopen the new three-year contract for police officers and the other employees who got away with annual raises higher than the cost of living increase.

Bob Baker, head of the Police Protective League representing officers, protested that nothing had changed for the city's finances, since the police contract was approved in August.

He's exactly right, and that was the problem all along.

When the City Council voted to approve the contract giving police officers costing $80 million for the first year alone, they already knew they were facing big money problems next year.

Yet only Councilman Bernard C. Parks, the former police chief, had the guts to question the logic of the pay hike, which appeared to rest solely on the argument that city employees are valuable and, hey, we already gave raises to all the other unions.

That's faulty logic, and we applaud the council and mayor for finally coming around - assuming it's more than just hot air. We've heard a lot of big talk out of City Hall in the past about cutting costs, yet, year after year, city leaders have thrown open the doors of the treasury.

We hope this time it will be different.

And if they mean it, they shouldn't waste another week before setting a good example and taking the first and most important cost-cutting measure of all.

That, of course, would mean slashing their own salaries - $140,000 a year, the highest for municipal officials in the nation - and trimming their own bloated and overpaid staffs, along with getting rid of all the taxpayer-supplied cars and other unnecessary perks.

It's only fair that everyone shares the pain, starting with the fattest of the fat cats.