Mayor Karen Bass and city negotiators have struck a deal to provide broad pay increases and bonuses to nearly 9,000 police officers as part of a larger effort to reorganize the Los Angeles Police Department.
The four-year contract, which cannot come into effect without an approval vote by members of the Los Angeles Police Protection League, will increase the starting salary of new hires by 11%, with a 3% increase every four years. City administrator Matt Szabo, a senior budget official who reports to the city of Bath and the city council, said it would be added to each employee’s base salary.
The agreement also includes an increase in employee retention allowances to ensure that employees remain in government agencies for the long term. And it will increase health insurance subsidies for executives by 5%, Szabo said on Tuesday.
Bass, who chairs the city’s five-member bargaining committee, said the deal will hire more police officers, accelerate recruitment, and increase the number of officers already hired to serve with the LAPD. said it would support her goal of improving retention.
“My number one job is to keep Angelenos safe,” she said in a statement. “Like many major cities across the country, our police departments are facing a job and retention crisis, so we are taking important steps.”
The deal comes about three months after Bass promised to increase the number of LAPD staff and proposed a budget plan aimed at returning the LAPD to 9,500 personnel by the middle of next year.
The ministry has lost about 1,000 police officers, about 10% of its sworn staff, over the past four years. The number of police officers in the department stands at 9,034, according to figures posted on the LAPD website last week. Bass has repeatedly expressed concern that the number will soon fall below 9,000.
Union leadership published a bulletin on Monday night advertising the proposed salary agreement. Including the increased retention allowance, union members will receive a 6% wage increase this year, 4% in the second year of the contract, 5% in the third year and 5% in the fourth year, according to the union newsletter.
Separately, union vice president Jeretta Sandos said the deal “puts the Los Angeles Police Department on the right path” toward retaining officers and supervisors.
“Our civilians working to restore manning after losing 1,000 officers deserve these increases and improvements,” she said in a statement.
Los Angeles Police Department officers are expected to vote on the deal next week, which will increase annual starting salaries from about $74,000 (the amount a cadet receives upon entering the police academy) to about $80,000. It will be raised to $6,000. The ministry will also begin offering retention bonuses to employees from their second year onwards to discourage them from leaving other agencies so soon after being hired, Mr. Szabo said.
Under previous contracts, retention bonuses weren’t paid out until officers were in their 10th year, Szabo said.
The deal is just one part of an effort to rebuild the LAPD’s ranks. The mayor’s budget, approved in May, called for hiring 780 staff and up to 200 retirees, a goal many in the city hall find very difficult to achieve. I was watching.
Since then, the Los Angeles Police Department has continued to shrink.
Bass hoped to fill the police academy’s 13 classes with 60 recruits during the current budget year. In fact, the last two classes had less than half that number, with 24 in late June and 26 last week.
If Los Angeles Police Department officials approve the deal, it will go to the City Council for a final vote. Given the state of relations between the union and Bus a year ago, it’s somewhat remarkable that the deal came together so smoothly.
During last year’s election, the Police Protection League-sponsored Political Action Committee spent more than $3.4 million campaigning against Bass, while opposing real estate developer Rick Caruso, according to Ethics Commission records. supported the candidacy of Mr. Those efforts include TV advertising It sought to link Bass to a federal corruption case facing one of her allies, former City Councilman Mark Ridley Thomas.
Bass called these advertisements “defamatory.” After Mr. Caruso fell far behind Mr. Bass in the June 2022 primary, the union did not make a similar effort in the runoff. Bass easily defeated Caruso in November.
The LAPD expansion push comes at a time when crime has dropped significantly. As of July 22, homicides across the city were down 19% from the same period last year, according to the department’s statistics. Violent crime has dropped by more than 9% he citywide.
Some parts of the city are still struggling.Los Angeles Police Department Walled DivisioDistrict n, which includes areas such as Westlake and Historic Filipinotown, has reported 15 murders so far this year, compared with eight in the same period in 2022. According to the ministry, the number of aggravated assaults in Rampart has increased by nearly 6%.
In the western San Fernando Valley, the LAPD reported a 13% increase in robberies. West Valley DivisionThis included Encino, Tarzana and Reseda, where robberies increased by 23%. Devonshire Divisions including Northridge and Chatsworth.
The last time the LAPD fell below 9,000 police officers was in the first year of Mayor James Hahn’s administration, which took office in July 2001. According to figures provided by the LAPD, the department averaged 8,905 officers during the fiscal year.
A few months after taking office, Mr. Hahn proposed to executives a “3-12” schedule, meaning three consecutive 12-hour days and a few days off. The proposal was eventually adopted, over the objections of then Chief of Police Bernard C. Parkes, by those he appointed to the Police Commission.
Parks eventually won a seat on the city council and continued to push for the abolition of Compression Labor Week. Those efforts were unsuccessful.
