Council Panel Restores Mayor’s Trims in Budget : Government: Committee suggests retaining police officers and children’s programs. Hiring freezes, deferred projects and a cable TV tax would provide funds.

The City Council’s budget writing team on Wednesday agreed to scrap Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s key cost-cutting proposals and restore 400 police officers, an after-school recreation program for 10,000 latchkey children and funding to keep parks and libraries open.

Also added into the $3.9-billion budget proposal is $1 million for a special police litigation unit in the city attorney’s office, in anticipation of a surge in lawsuits following the Rodney G. King police beating incident.

“We have, through precise, surgical budget cutting and by shifting available revenues, found the money to fund programs that we really can’t afford to cut,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Finance and Revenue Committee. “We cannot afford to cut the police force or programs for youth.”

Another area that will not be cut is taxes.

The council committee members agreed to keep all of Bradley’s $77 million in proposed tax hikes--including a controversial new tax on cable television, but with a senior citizen exemption. Bradley has proposed extending the 10% utility tax to monthly cable bills and imposing a new real estate transfer tax that would cost about $900 on the sale of a $200,000 home.

“We are also counting on the economy not remaining in recession much longer,” said Yaroslavsky.

In all, the budget package that committee members will take to the full council on Monday would restore $25.5 million in programs slashed by Bradley and cut $17.2 million in other departments and programs--primarily through more stringent interpretation of the city’s hiring freeze and deferral of capital projects.

The balance is made up by shifting about $8.7 million in revenues from special funds to general city purposes.

The full council is expected to debate the budget for most of next week before sending its recommendations back to the mayor. Yaroslavsky, who quarterbacks the effort on the City Council floor, said he does not expect a contentious debate this year because the choices before members are few.

Under the City Charter, the mayor had until April 20 to submit a balanced budget to the City Council, which has until June 1 to make changes to the plan. The mayor then has five days to veto any council changes and the lawmakers get an additional five days to muster a two-thirds vote to override any vetoes.

A spokesman for Bradley said the mayor would have no comment on the budget process until he receives the council’s final draft.

“This has been a particularly difficult year,” said Yaroslavsky. “Revenues are down, but demand for (city) services is not down; it is up.”

This year’s fiscal crisis, one of the worst in city history, was spawned by a soft real estate market and slow retail sales that are projected to produce one of the smallest increases in tax revenues since the recession of 1982.

At the same time the city faces rises in key expenses: An across-the-board 5% wage hike, state-mandated improvements at the Lopez Canyon landfill and hikes in health insurance, workers compensation and other services.

City Councilman Richard Alatorre, another member of the budget-writing team, said that with the prospect of year-round schools citywide, funds for parks, libraries and after-school programs “are not a luxury, but a necessity for these kids.”

Councilwoman Joy Picus, the third member of the finance and revenue committee, said the priority in deliberations this year was restoration of all police positions. The proposals adopted by the committee Wednesday would keep the police force at its current staffing of 8,332 sworn officers, up from the 7,900 proposed by Bradley.

As for funding of the police litigation unit in the city attorney’s office, Picus said, “It’s cost effective, plain and simple.”

City Atty. James K. Hahn warned council members during budget hearings earlier in the week that there will be more lawsuits filed against the city and the Police Department as a result of the King case. More cases will go to trial, requiring more preparation by a limited staff of city attorneys and jury payouts will likely increase, he said.

Some of the spending cuts proposed by the committee may have to be restored in future years. Among the capital projects scrapped under the council committee plan is a $1.8-million cleanup of contaminated soil, $1.2 million from the city’s garbage recycling program and $1 million from the fund for paying liability claims.

Cable television operators, who have mounted a radio, newspaper and direct mail campaign urging subscribers to call the mayor and their council members, said they will now take their appeal of the proposed utility tax to the full council. Mayor Bradley’s office said he has been receiving about 20 calls a day from residents opposed to the tax and Councilman Yaroslavsky’s office said he has received about 200 calls so far.