Voting 12-3, the Los Angeles City Council approved a new four-year contract with a union representing the Los Angeles Police Department Wednesday.
The deal increases officer pay by 20% over the next four years and will cost the city a cumulative $994 million, according to city administrative officer Matt Szabo.
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Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Nithya Raman, the only no votes, called the deal “irresponsible” during a news conference at City Hall Wednesday morning.
“Our budget is a zero sum game,” Hernandez said. “When we allocate so much of our city dollars to just one department, we starve all of our other departments from the money, personnel and resources that they need to serve Angelenos.”
The contract will immediately raise the starting salary for new LAPD recruits from $74,020 to $86,193, a 12.6% increase. By 2027, the starting salary will hit $94,000.
Supporters of the deal say raising salaries is crucial to addressing the department’s retention and recruitment problems.
“This contract is necessary to keep the police officers we have and to hire the ones we need, and it’s essential to rebuild the department and to keep our city safe,” Councilmember Traci Park said.
But Raman disputed that salaries are the issue, pointing out that other local police agencies with higher starting pay are facing the same problems.
“Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Burbank, the Sheriff’s Department, are all, to a department, facing retention issues and staffing shortages themselves,” she said.
The LAPD has lost more than 1,000 officers since the beginning of 2020. There are currently 9,011 sworn officers, the lowest number in a decade, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the Police Commission Tuesday.
Melina Abdullah, the leader of the Los Angeles Chapter of Black Lives Matter, said the LAPD’s issues with recruitment stem from a public perception that the department is rife with "racial bias, misogyny within your own department, alcohol abuse, careless and harmful handling of equipment, especially guns, and not being truthful."
“Young people don't want to be violence workers," she said.
Moore said the department’s officers have shot 19 people so far this year, 10 fatally.
Despite the declining number of LAPD officers, violent crime has dropped 7.9% this year. The homicide rate is 24% lower than it was in August 2022, but personal thefts have risen by 20%, according to Moore.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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