Cash-Strapped RTD Votes to Increase Its Police Force : Transportation: Three-year effort will increase the size of transit unit 66%, to 330 officers.

Despite a $65-million budget shortfall that has forced the district to lay off drivers and cut service on its busiest lines, the Southern California Rapid Transit District board voted unanimously Thursday to increase the size of its transit police force by 66%, to 330 officers.

District staff members also said they have reached a tentative agreement with the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission over the auditing of federal money for the first leg of the Metro Red Line subway.

RTD officials estimated that the transit police expansion will cost $3.4 million a year after being phased in over the next three years. The 11-member board instructed staff to find the money in the district’s $665-million annual budget.

The expansion affirms the board’s support for the special police force, which was created to combat crime on buses and at bus stops. The RTD board last year yielded to political pressure and refused to let RTD police patrol the Blue Line trolley, hiring Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to do the job for about $13 million a year.

That decision damaged morale at the RTD police force, which under Chief Sharon Papa has spent the last year working to shed an unfavorable image. The image problem resulted from incidents--including nepotism, ticket-fixing and on-duty drinking--under previous chiefs.

The tentative audit compromise with the LACTC was reached after top RTD officials came close to publicly accusing the county commission of intentionally hiding books from independent auditors.

The LACTC always maintained that an RTD audit of the project would be redundant and wasteful at a time of severe budget problems for both transit agencies. The LACTC is in charge of building the Red Line subway, a job it inherited from the RTD in 1990 after the RTD was accused of accumulating large delays and cost overruns.

Because the RTD remained the formal recipient of federal construction grants for the 4.4-mile, $1.45-billion first segment of the line, it asserted that it should be allowed to independently audit spending on the project.

Under the tentative agreement, which must be approved by both boards of directors as well as the federal government--the RTD would transfer responsibility for the federal grants to the LACTC, said RTD spokesman Greg Davy.