The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a four-year package of pay increases and bonuses for regular police officers after objections from critics who said the deal is too expensive and will spend the city’s money on the wrong things.

The board, by a vote of 12 to 3, signed the agreement with the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which gave union members four annual pay raises, larger retention bonuses and other incentives to encourage officers to join the LAPD. and remain throughout their career.

The council’s decision is expected to push police spending in LA to $3.6 billion by 2027, compared to the $3.2 billion budgeted for this year. The vote also landed a big win for Mayor Karen Bass, who is a member of the city’s negotiating committee and had advocated for the police union contract.

During Tuesday’s deliberations, Councilman Bob Blumenfield expressed support for the agreement, saying additional officers will make the LAPD less reliable on overtime. The agreement, he said, will also keep officers from leaving for other law enforcement agencies soon after they graduate from the Police Academy, he said.

“It’s a lot of money. And I certainly take a gulp when I say that,” said Blumenfield

representing part of the western San Fernando Valley

. “But we need to have a competitive police force, in terms of being able to recruit and retain people.”

The collection of pay raises, benefits and other entitlements from the agreement is expected to cost nearly $1 billion over the life of the four-year agreement, a fact that has been seized upon by opponents of the deal within City Hall.

Three members of the council, Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martnez, all occupying the left flank of the council, voted against the deal, arguing that it would drain money from mental health doctors, homeless workers and many other urban needs. They warned of the financial impact on other agencies, especially if the city faces a major economic downturn.

“The next time we face a recession, a spending crisis or a budget deficit, we will all look back at this vote,” Soto-Martinez said.

whose district extends from Echo Park to Hollywood

.

Raman

whose district straddles the Hollywood Hills,

said she is “sympathetic” to the city’s goals of addressing LAPD hiring and recruiting. But she argued that the pay raise and bonus packages would do little to address these issues.

Southern California police departments with higher starting salaries Burbank, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and other agencies have the same recruiting problems as the LAPD, Raman said.

Law enforcement agencies across the country are reporting staff shortages, she said.

Hernandez and Raman compiled a list of services they said needed more money for street lighting, sidewalk repairs, building inspections, alley renewal, and other city operations.

“This contract, due to the massive budget impact, potentially prevents us from providing an alternative response to non-violent calls to service, which make up the majority of 9-1-1 calls,” Raman said.

City manager Matt Szabo told council members at one point during the day’s discussions that the contract would make it easier for the city to expand its system of unarmed response to emergency calls, by ensuring that such changes do not prevent the signing of require the union. .

The deal with the police union is part of Bass’s effort to reverse the steady decline in the LAPD’s workforce, which has lost about a thousand officers over the past four years. Bass earlier this year pushed for the hiring of up to 780 officers in the current budget year, plus the hiring of about 200 retirees.

The contract

retroactive to July 1,

will increase officers’ starting pay by nearly 13%, while also delivering four 3% increases over four years. These increases would make LAPD starting salaries above $86,000 in the first year of the contract higher than those in Pasadena, Long Beach and Burbank, but lower than those in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, according to city figures.

By the fourth year of the contract, LAPD starting salaries will be about $94,000, Szabo said. In addition, newer officers receive retention bonuses for the first time. Senior officers with more than a decade of experience will earn retention bonuses far greater than those now in effect.

During the final year of the contract, officers who have served between the ages of 20 and 26 will receive an annual retention bonus of $20,754, while those with 27 or more years will earn an annual retention bonus of $22,208, Szabo said.

“This contract represents…a very substantial financial commitment to recruiting and retaining officers,” he said. “As with any major financial commitment, this will create choices in the future.”

Bass thanked councilors for their action and said she looks forward to working with them on public safety issues. Meanwhile, LAPD assistant. Chief Dominic Choi said he believes the focus on higher compensation is already helping his agency with hiring.

The Police Academy’s newest class will number 44 recruits, down from less than 30 earlier this summer, and some have officers who have left the department and are in doubt, Choi said at a contract hearing earlier today.

“Five people have called in the past two weeks and said, ‘How do I get back into the LAPD,'” he told the council’s personnel committee.

Councilman Traci Park

representing the coastal districts,

enthusiastically approved the contract, saying her voters in Westside are demanding a greater police presence. The agreement, she said, will provide fair compensation to workers who “risk their lives every day”.

“When I was sworn in nine months ago, I promised my community and our police officers that the days of scapegoating and police bashing in Council District 11 were over,” Park said. “I meant what I said then, and I stand by that today.”

Park, along with several other proponents of the contract, was often greeted with boos or profanity from onlookers who did so

opposite

the agreement. Among that group was Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, who argued that police reports are “the opposite of what people say they want.”

“It is astonishing that the mayor and others allow themselves to be bullied and bribed by a police association, which is not a real union,” Abdullah said earlier at a press conference with Raman, Hernandez and Soto-Martinez.

Police Protective League spokesman Tom Saggau took the opposite view, saying the council had acted to make the city a safer place, taking a “courageous and necessary step to restore the ranks of the LAPD.”

“We are grateful to Mayor Bass for her leadership and look forward to working with her and the council in creating a national model for unarmed responses to certain calls for service,” he said, “and retaining experienced officers to lead these initiatives.” to feed.”