OT DRAINING LAPD EXTRA HOURS BUST BUDGET; OFFICERS BLAME WHITTLED FORCE.

Byline: Orith Goldberg Staff Writer

Overtime pay for LAPD officers has soared dramatically, with the department exceeding its budget by $15 million last fiscal year alone, according to a Daily News analysis of payroll records.

Officers worked 1.4 million hours of overtime in the 2000-01 fiscal year for a total of $46.2 million, exceeding the department's $31.1 million budget by nearly half.

Beat cops say the overtime work - combined with a dwindling number of officers on the street - is increasing fatigue and frustration and sapping morale.

``The bottom line is we're drawing officers normally working (as) detectives, drawing them back in the field because they (the LAPD) can't man police cars,'' said Tim Sands, a director with the Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file officers.

Excluding the command staff, the number of sworn officers has fallen by 3.5 percent from a high of 9,247 in the 1999-2000 fiscal year to 8,924 in the 2000-01 fiscal year.

Meanwhile, overtime pay has surged 85 percent, from nearly $25 million in the 1999-2000 fiscal year to $46 million in the 2000-01 fiscal year.

On average, officers took home $5,178 in overtime pay in fiscal year 2000-01 with a cost to taxpayers of more than $676 million in total payroll expenses. The annual starting salary for officers is $44,537.

If the situation continues, it could severely weaken the Los Angeles Police Department's ability to combat crime, warned an academic expert.

Officers ``are not as emotionally effective as when they put in an eight- hour day,'' said Lewis Yablonsky, professor emeritus of criminology and sociology at California State University, Northridge.

``I think the Police Department would be more effective in their role if they hired more (officers).''

But LAPD officials and city leaders dismissed the manpower shortage as the culprit behind the ballooning overtime payments. Instead, they pointed to greater-than-expected overtime costs for last summer's Democratic National Convention and new departmental rules affecting overtime hours and pay.

``We're paying between 60 (percent) and 70 percent of overtime,'' said Wray Hollemon, the LAPD's commanding officer for the Fiscal Operations Division. ``We've had a substantive increase in the amount of overtime we're paying.''

The new policies stem from a 1993 federal lawsuit by LAPD officers who said the city violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by paying overtime late and forcing officers to accept compensatory time off instead of cash for working overtime during the 1992 riots.

The suit resulted in an estimated $14 million in retroactive overtime pay. It also led to the creation of two rules that require the department to pay overtime within a certain period of time and limit the amount of overtime that officers are allowed to work.

The 19-hour rule states that in a 28-day deployment period, all overtime in excess of 19 hours must be compensated in cash. The 96-hour rule maintains that at any point in time, an officer cannot have more than 96 hours accumulated in overtime.

Before the lawsuit, officers were given greater flexibility to take compensatory time off, said Los Angeles Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who chairs the city's Public Safety Committee.

``Now, it's pay as you go,'' she said. ``You have to pay a much higher percentage. So (yes), we're going to see the higher amount paid and will have to see budget adjustments for that.''

Both Miscikowski and Hollemon noted that while the amount in overtime pay has substantively increased during the past two years, the number of overtime hours worked has remained fairly consistent when factoring out the Democratic National Convention.

About 1.1 million hours of overtime was worked in the 1999-2000 fiscal year, compared with 1.4 million hours of overtime in the 2000-01 fiscal year.

Of the 300,000-hour difference, 205,000 hours were worked during the convention. In fact, the LAPD spent $11 million in overtime pay on the convention, far exceeding the department's $1.4 million budget for the weeklong event.

Apart from the convention, other major factors contributing to overtime hours and costs last fiscal year include $4.9 million for on-call court appearances, $4.3 million for routine patrols and $4.1 million given to officers investigating unusual occurrences.

While some officers said they enjoy the overtime pay, others complained about the increasing demand on their personal time.

``When it's on a routine basis, it gets frustrating,'' said an LAPD officer who asked to remain anonymous.

But with increasing numbers of officers leaving the profession - dissatisfied with the pay, harsh public criticism and the dangers of the job - he didn't see an easy solution to the department's dilemma.

``I think the overtime now is the best we're going to get,'' the officer said. ``I don't know of any other way they can do it.''

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SOURCE: LAPD

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