Mayor Asks Plans for Budget Cuts

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan asked city department heads Tuesday to submit plans for reducing their operations by as much as 15% to help the city balance its budget after a $34-million reduction in support from the state.

Riordan’s staff said it does not expect cuts to be that large, but the mayor asked for the reports from more than 30 departments to help him draft a revised budget, said Bill McCarley, the mayor’s chief of staff.

The request was delivered to the top bureaucrats, other than Police Chief Willie L. Williams, in a letter Tuesday. Riordan has promised to expand police service.

Mayor Tom Bradley had routinely asked department heads for such budget-cutting plans before delivering his own budgets to the City Council. Several department heads said Tuesday they were not alarmed by the request.

Riordan’s staff has been working for several weeks on a revised budget, after release of a state spending plan that reduces support for the city. The mayor’s advisers had said they hope to release the new budget by this week but now may need until the end of the month to deliver it to the council.

Members of the mayor’s staff said they hope to plug the gap left by the state cuts, prepare for more hard financial times next year and find money to increase police overtime funding.