POLICE TAX HIKE A LOADED ISSUE?

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Los Angeles County Measure A will increase the sales tax by one-half percent to raise $560 million a year to hire more police and deputies, upgrade their equipment and improve emergency services to deal with terrorist threats.

Supporters say the money will be shared equally between the city of Los Angeles, the county Sheriff's Department and smaller cities and will allow for hiring 5,000 more law enforcement officers over three or four years. And that, they say, will mean crime can be cut in half.

Critics range from those who are skeptical that more cops will mean dramatically less crime to those who argue local officials can't be trusted with more tax dollars when they have misspent the money they already have in low-priority areas rather than for public safety.

If approved by two-thirds of voters on Nov. 2, the one-half percent sales tax increase would raise the rate to the state maximum of 8.75 percent, tying Los Angeles with Alameda County for the highest level in California.

Supporters of the tax increase say comparing Los Angeles to other counties is misleading, arguing the largest county in the nation must be compared to other large metropolitan areas that have high crime rates.

Both Sheriff Lee Baca, who spearheaded getting the measure on the ballot, and LAPD Chief William Bratton say the city and county are vastly underpoliced areas, citing statistics showing that New York City and Chicago have twice as many officers per resident.

``Quite clearly, the city of Los Angeles does not have enough police for its needs,'' Bratton said. ``These are very different environments. The key thing to make crime go down dramatically is more police. Nothing in this area compares to Los Angeles in terms of its complexity, density in population and nature of its crime problem.''

Opponents predict much of the revenue would be spent on higher salaries and employee benefits.

They cite government figures showing spending for law enforcement is already sharply higher in Los Angeles County than surrounding counties, with more officers and deputies in the county per capita but fewer felony arrests and significantly more crime. And they point out the measure's ballot language does not require law enforcement agencies to hire more officers - simply to increase spending.

``What we see is that we are paying more for police protection, although it would appear from the crime statistics that, while our officers are doing a good job, the fact is they are making significantly fewer felony arrests than officers in other surrounding jurisdictions,'' said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

``Obviously, if we had a police officer on every corner we would be safer than we are now. But is that something we can afford to do? We are already a high-tax county in a high-tax state.''

With 5,000 more officers and deputies on the streets, Baca said, criminals will not enjoy the freedom they have now to commit crime. Baca also said the funds will help him reopen some jails, reducing the revolving- door syndrome.

``Our goal is to cut the crime rate in half. If we can do that, we'll save a lot of taxpayer dollars,'' Baca said.

Baca, Bratton and other officials point to the costs that result from homicides - including trauma care, police investigation, prosecution, economic harm to the community and depressed property values.

``Murder alone costs the taxpayers $1 billion a year. There are 1,000 murders a year in the county that cost $1 million apiece,'' Baca said. ``We have the largest gang problem in the world here with 85,000 gang members. From an economic point of view, the half-cent sales tax is the most sensible and logical way to save money and prevent human misery.''

But Joe Domanick, a senior fellow in criminal justice at the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism and author of ``To Protect and Serve: The LAPD's Century of War in the City of Dreams,'' said he doesn't buy the claim that 5,000 more cops will help cut crime in half.

``You can arrest as many people as you want, but the prisons are already overflowing,'' Domanick said. ``Once you arrest one of them, a nephew or younger brother will just take their place.

``What Baca and Bratton should be working on is to join a coalition of community groups who want to do something serious about crime, who want to salvage people when they get out of prison. California has a 67 percent recidivism rate - twice that of the rest of the nation.''

Robert Feliciano, a criminal justice professor at Rio Hondo Community College, said New York City and Chicago need to have far more officers than L.A. because those are mostly high-rise cities where officers walking the beat are often called to respond to crime in tall buildings.

``In New York City, it's very compressed,'' Feliciano said. ``But here in Los Angeles County, we are wide open and spread out. We don't have foot patrols. We respond in radio cars. We can cover more ground in less time. It's disingenuous when they make claims like this.''

Bob Baker, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said there is only one police officer for every 435 citizens in L.A., half as many as in New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia.

``In Los Angeles this year, there were 75 unprovoked attacks on police officers,'' Baker said. ``This is just when they were getting out of the car to handle a call. If people are that bold to attack an armed police officer, that should be a huge statement about the amount of violence we have in the city.''

Measure A opponents say if voters pass statewide Proposition 1A, which would severely restrict the ability of the state to raid local government coffers, more funds will be available to hire more police and deputies.

They also argue that if elected officials would make law enforcement their top funding priority - instead of diverting large amounts of taxpayer funds to their pet projects and for other uses - and crack down on the salaries and soaring pensions of public safety employees, that more than enough money would be available to hire more officers without a tax increase.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said some elected officials working with government bureaucrats would rather raise taxes and keep their true spending priorities buried in budgets, knowing that raising taxes for law enforcement has a better chance of gaining voter approval than asking taxpayers to fund their pet programs.

``The city of New York doubled their police force through sound management and placing public safety as their top priority,'' Antonovich said. ``Los Angeles County could follow the same program without having to resort to increasing taxes.''

Unions representing county sheriff's and fire employees are currently in negotiations with county officials for more generous retirement benefits, similar to ones threatening to bankrupt San Diego and causing severe financial hardship in other cities and counties throughout the state. Officials say the pension enhancement would cost an extra $25 million to $47 million a year, and potentially up to several hundred million dollars if more employees are made eligible for the plan.

Local law enforcement employees are already among the highest paid in the nation.

A sheriff's deputy with 10 years experience earns a base annual salary of $67,884 plus benefits. An LAPD officer with similar experience earns base pay of $69,614 plus benefits. In comparison, a 10-year veteran Chicago police officer earns base pay of $60,600 plus benefits. A New York City police officer with similar experience earns $58,293 plus benefits.

A December audit found salary costs in the Sheriff's Department soared by more than a third over a five-year period ending in 2002, while pension costs nearly tripled.

But Roy Burns, president of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said the department is losing an unprecedented number of deputies to other law enforcement agencies in the state because they can get better pensions elsewhere.

After former Gov. Gray Davis' approval of lucrative pensions for California Highway Patrol officers, a total of 250 government agencies in the state now provide pensions that allow workers to retire with 90 percent or more of their salaries at age 50.

``Nobody wants to be taxed,'' Burns said. ``But nobody wants their neighborhood to become a battleground, either. That is very easily what could happen.''

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com