Police union pushes back on City leaders for underfunding LAPD
Contact: Eric Rose (805) 624-0572
or Paul Haney (626) 755-4759
LOS ANGELES, June 9, 2011 – The Los Angeles Police Protective League today pushed back on City leaders for creating a public safety crisis by irresponsibly finalizing a city budget that left the LAPD with a $41 million budget gap.
“With just 20 days to go before the new city budget takes effect, the LAPD is threatening to take measures to plug the gap that put the public at risk and show a total disregard for long-established collective bargaining principles,” said LAPPL President Paul M. Weber. “We are not going to sit by and allow our membership to be scapegoats for the failure of City leaders to adequately fund public safety in the budget process. The League has consistently shown its willingness to bargain in good faith. By passing the buck from the City Council to the Mayor to the Chief of Police, City leaders have shown a lack of commitment to public safety and needlessly created this situation.”
Weber referred to a press release issued Wednesday by the LAPD threatening to reassign personnel from specialized commands to patrol assignments if the LAPPL does not agree to extend beyond July 1 a temporary policy that requires officers to take up to 400 hours of Compensatory Time Off (CTO) in lieu of payment for hours worked.
Weber, in a letter to Chief Beck, noted that the sunset date for the current CTO policy is part of a Memorandum of Understanding ratified by LAPPL members and the City nearly 18 months ago that cannot be extended without the membership’s vote.
Weber noted that on a daily basis, the LAPD already has 540 fewer officers working because of forced time off. Another 154 are filling critical civilian positions, and at least 60 more officers are working at the Metropolitan Detention Center to fill in for detention officers the City refuses to hire. In essence, every 100 officers forced to take time off or to backfill civilian positions is the equivalent of removing 30 police cars from service citywide.
By originally agreeing to end the 400-hour overtime bank on June 30, 2011, and then refusing to honor that contract provision in the coming fiscal year’s budget, the City is very publicly bargaining in bad faith. They created a liability that they now, at the last minute, are refusing to honor. Instead, the City is willing to compound the looming public safety crisis with threatened furloughs, a massive expansion of the number of officers forced to remain at home and the wholesale dismantling of entire units within the police department. It is actions like these that are in direct conflict with City leaders’ stated positions that public safety is their top priority.
About the LAPPL: Formed in 1923, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) represents the more than 9,900 dedicated and professional sworn members of the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPPL serves to advance the interests of LAPD officers through legislative and legal advocacy, political action and education. The LAPPL can be found on the Web at www.LAPD.com.
