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By The Numbers: Long Beach Mayor Garcia Proposes -- After Sales Tax Hike -- Not Restoring Roughly 96% Of Police Long Beach Previously Had For Citywide Deployment But Cut By Councils (Including Him) Since 2009; If Not Changed By Council, This Would Leave L.A. County's Second Largest City With Thin Police Level Roughly Equivalent Per Capita To Erasing Over A Third Of LAPD's Officers


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(August 14, 2016) -- An analysis of the FY17 City Hall budget proposed by city management and Mayor Robert Garcia shows that despite an infusion of tens of millions of dollars that LB consumers will pay in the Measure A sales tax increase, Mayor Garcia has asked City Councilmembers to leave Long Beach without 96% of police officers that previous Councils erased in budget votes that included Garcia as a Councilmember from May 2009-mid July 2014.

If not changed by the current Council in budget votes currently scheduled for Sept. 6 and Sept. 13, this would leave L.A. County's second largest city with a thin police level for citywide deployment roughly equivalent per capita to what Los Angeles would have if L.A. Mayor Garcetti and L.A.'s Council erased over a third of L.A.P.D's officers.

[Scroll down for further.]

By the numbers:

  • LB's management/Mayor recommended FY17 budget proposes adding 8 officers to 806 budgeted by the Council in FY16.
    806 + 8 = 814

  • As in previous years, over five dozen of LB's budgeted officers are contracted, not paid by the Council but paid for and assigned to LB's Port, Airport, LBCC, LBUSD, LBTransit and L.A. County Carmelitos housing. Contracted officers aren't available for deployment for citywide policing needs including neighborhood calls for service, gangs, fireworks/bombs, neighborhood disturbances, assaults, robberies and burglaries. The proposed FY17 budget includes 68 contracted officers.
    814 - 68 = 746

  • Long Beach's most recent population (source: State of CA Dept. of Finance, report E-1, used by state and local governments) is 484,958.
    746 / 484.958 = 1.54 officers per thousand residents

  • In FY17, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the LA's City Council budgeted 10,000 officers for a population of 4,030,904. residents.
    10,000 / 4030.904 = 2.48 officers per thousand residents

  • To experience the per capita police level that Long Beach now experiences, Los Angeles would have to cut over a third of its police officers.
    1.54 [LB citywide police level] x 4,030.904 [L.A. population] = 6,208 [officers at LB's budgeted level]

    10,000 [L.A.'s FY17 budgeted level] - 6,208 [what LA would have if LA Mayor Garcetti and LA Council budgeted what LB Mayor/Council budgets] = 3,792, a nearly 38% reduction in L.A.'s budgeted police level.

  • Long Beach budgeted 961 officers for citywide deployment in FY09 [figure includes 17 recruits for that year's police academy; budget also included 59 contracted officers that year, bringing total to 1,020, LB's all-time budgeted high.] LB's Jan. 2009 population [Dept. of Finance Report E-1] was 492,682.
    961 / 492.682 = 1.95 officers per thousand residents.

  • In announcing his Council candidacy in Dec. 2008, candidate Robert Garcia stated: "What do I see as a vision for the 1st district and for the rest of the city quite frankly? The first and the most important is always a commitment to safe and clean streets. And you can be sure that my number one priority will always be the safety and security of the people that live in the city." Less than a year later in his first budget vote, Councilman Garcia voted to budget roughly 87 fewer citywide officers for taxpayers. Less than a year thereafter, Mayor Foster appointed Garcia to chair the Council's Public Safety Committee, where Garcia held no hearings on the public safety impacts of Foster's proposed continuing police and fire budget reductions, including the complete elimination of LBPD's field anti-gang unit (20 officers + 2 sergeants.)

  • The budget reductions which began in Sept. 2009/FY10 (dissent in Sept. 2012/FY13 from now-former Councilmembers Gabelich, Schipske and Neal) have left Long Beach taxpayers with roughly 200 fewer budgeted officers than the City provided eight years ago. This represents the largest reduction in LBPD staffing for LB taxpayers in the more than 100 year history of the City of Long Beach.

  • Other cities experienced a bad economy ("the Great Recession") and didn't do what LB Councils did during this period, which included approving double-digit city management raises (Nov. 2013, 7-2, DeLong and Johnson dissenting) and a costly new Civic Center (Dec. 2015, 9-0) without seeking bids for a less costly City Hall seismic retrofit.

  • On Feb. 23, 2016, the Council voted 8-0 (Austin absent) to put a sales tax increase ("Measure A") on the June ballot that current and future Councils can spend on any general fund items they wish but showed Long Beach voters the following title and text on their ballots in pertinent part:

    [All caps in original] "CITY OF LONG BEACH PUBLIC SAFETY, INFRASTRUCTURE REPAIR AND NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES MEASURE. To maintain 911 emergency response services; increase police, firefighter/paramedic staffing; repair potholes/streets; improve water supplies; and maintain general services...

  • A $600,000+ plus political campaign began, run by an "Officeholder [or Candidate] Controlled Committee" in which the officeholder is Mayor Garcia. The Committee's major contributors included LB's police and firefighter unions (with other city employee unions preparing to negotiate new contracts) and sent LB voters mailers including the one below:


  • The sales tax increase, beginning on Jan. 1, 2017, will cost Long Beach consumers roughly $48 million per year, and City Hall expects to collect roughly $35 million from LB consumers during FY17 (which starts Oct. 1, 2016 and runs to Sept. 30, 2017) that the Council can spend as it pleases.

  • The approximate cost of 10 officers is $1.5 million per year, including salary and benefits [source: Lea Eriksen, Assistant Finance Director, City of LB]

  • On Aug. 1, 2016, Mayor Garcia proposed a FY17 budget that would restore 8 police officers out of roughly 200 erased since Sept. 2009.

  • The Garcia-proposed budget would also leave three fire stations without previously budgeted fire engines (Engines 17, 101 and 18) and NLB station 12 without its Rescue 12 paramedic/rescue unit. LBFD's Chief says that if funding became available, he would restore Rescue 12 first ($1.1 million/yr), then Engine 17 ($2.2 million/yr.)

  • LB Councilmembers will decide whether to accept the Mayor's proposed budget, or restore additional police and fire resources for taxpayers when the Council adopts a FY17 budget in votes scheduled for Sept. 6 and 13. The Mayor has no vote, only a veto that six Council members can override.

  • LBREPORT.com has editorially called on the Council to budget 27 officers beyond the 8 proposed by Mayor Garcia (a total of 35 in FY17.) At this annual pace (if it were to continue), LB would taxpayers would receive the roughly 200 officers the City previously provided, plus 10 additional officers to keep pace with increased downtown increased density that recent Council votes have invited, completed within six years, which is the period in which previous Councils erased roughly 200 officers.

  • Mayor Garcia has called his budget responsible. LBREPORT.com has published his views here. At the annual pace Garcia has proposed (if it were to continue), it would take a quarter century to restore the roughly 200 officers Long Beach had when he first took elective office.

Developing, with further to follow on LBREPORT.com


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