The rubber is starting to meet the road as the city works to solve a $212 million budget deficit. Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck already warned that overtime cuts would mean about 600 less officers on the streets for an already stretched-thin department. Now comes word that the Los Angeles Police Department has slashed 50 civilians from its payroll to meet City Hall demands to get rid of as many as 4,000 employees citywide.

Police Administrator Gerald Chaleff told a meeting of the Los Angeles Police Commission this week that 50 people have been cut from the department and another eight or nine were transferred out. He put the department's job "vacancy rate" at 400, with no relief in site. In fact, he said, the LAPD would have to continue to "redeployment" of cops and civilians to keep its books tight.

Beck has previously stated the department might institute furlough days for 10 percent of the LAPD workforce as a money-saving measure. Beck has also taken 170 badges from specialized units such as Metro, gang and narcotics and put them on regular patrols. Another unit, the 130-member Crime Reduction and Enforcement of Warrants Task Force, was disbanded altogether.