A hearing at which attorneys for the LAPD planned to ask a federal judge to end the consent decree under which the department has been under federal oversight since 2001 has been postponed, but police Chief William Bratton says he's confident the decree will be ended in the coming weeks.

The postponement of today's scheduled hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess was announced Friday, and no new hearing date was immediately set.

Police Chief William Bratton expressed optimism that Feess will soon terminate the financially burdensome decree, which came into being in 2001 in the aftermath of the Rampart corruption scandal and is set to expire June 16.

Three conditions of the decree require compliance for an additional two years - financial disclosure for officers who work in gang and narcotics units, a $50 million computer system that tracks all officer activities and in - car cameras that record officers when they make traffic stops. "I am cautiously very optimistic that the judge will acknowledge the work over the last eight years of this department," Bratton said Thursday.

The financial disclosure requirement, which was opposed by the union that represents the LAPD rank-and-file, took effect earlier this year. It requires that every two years, officers who routinely interact with gang members and drug dealers must report all of their personally and jointly owned assets, liabilities and income. Financial disclosure is intended to prevent corruption among officers who handle confiscated cash and drugs.

Since the policy was put in place, six or seven new officers have completed the disclosure requirement and applied to work in the affected units, according to Bratton. Officers who were already in gang and narcotics units have two years to comply with the requirement.

In South Los Angeles, 400 police vehicles have been equipped with the in-car video systems.

"It is our expectation that based on the experiences of other departments that we will be able to have clear-cut delineation of what occurred in a traffic stop in which a citizen makes a complaint against the department," Bratton said.

Ending the consent decree would help the LAPD save money on the federal monitors who are paid to oversee the police department. Those savings would come at a time when the LAPD is expected to take a $100 million hit to its $1.1 billion budget.

While the budget that is expected to be in place on July 1, the start of the fiscal year, will allow Bratton to replace officers who retire or leave the department, it takes away money needed for promotions and civilian employees.

There are 300 vacant positions in the police department that would otherwise be staffed by civilians - employees who are not police officers. Those who are with the LAPD will likely be required to take 26 unpaid days throughout the year to make up for an $18 million cut in salaries.

An average of 900 officers a year are promoted. Without that money - and with a hiring freeze in place - all promotions will have to be run by the Los Angeles City Council, the chief said.

"It is going to be a major problem,"' Bratton said. "I hope they bring their mattresses and pillows to the city council chamber because they're never going to be able to leave if they have to review every promotion because I'm going to continue to send promotion requests. One of the things I think (Judge Feess) will not want to tolerate is a reduction in supervision."