If the Los Angeles City Council wants to cut $150 million from the Police Department, it should scale back hiring, top city analysts said in a report released Friday.
Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso and City Administrative Officer Richard Llewellyn said the effort to cut back spending at the LAPD would leave the department with 9,757 officers by the end of June 2021. Doing so would mark a major shift in policy for the city leaders who had long pushed to get — and keep — the department at or above 10,000 officers.
The report said the proposed rollback in police spending would also mean reducing LAPD overtime spending in the coming year. If the department does not change the way it operates, the analysts said, that could mean more “overtime banking” — a practice in which officers work overtime but are not compensated for those hours until later years.
Making such cuts would allow the city to reduce LAPD spending and redirect the savings into other services without resorting to layoffs, the report said. Other suggested cuts include reducing spending on technology, replacement vehicles and expense accounts.
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