Budget Panel OKs Riordan’s Plan to Add Officers : Finances: Council committee advises hiring more library and recreation workers. It also recommends separating the mayor’s proposal to reorganize the city bureaucracy from deliberations on spending plan.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan will get his larger police force if a City Council committee has its way, but the city will also hire more librarians and recreation supervisors to improve library service and keep recreation centers open longer hours.

The addition of the park and library workers was among the most striking changes proposed Friday by the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, as Riordan’s $4.3-billion budget cleared its first major hurdle.

The committee also recommended removing from the budget deliberations Riordan’s ambitious plan for reorganizing the city bureaucracy. Mayoral deputies concede that the action means that the creation of two superagencies from eight departments and commissions will have to be delayed several months.

Mayoral chief of staff Bill McCarley said he was pleased the central theme of the budget--hiring 450 more police and putting many more on the street through increased overtime--remained intact.

“We’re glad it was well received,” McCarley said. “And even on the reorganizations, there is a commitment to move forward. Whether that is in July or September is not significant.”

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the budget committee, also praised the budget. “All of us want more police,” he said. “That was why this budget was largely unassailable.”

While approving the police plan, though, Yaroslavsky questioned whether it will succeed entirely in getting officers to sign on for overtime and holiday shifts. Most of Riordan’s plan to put more officers on the street depends on this concept, but police officials conceded this week that they do not know if they can spend the entire $54 million he set aside for the extra hours.

The budget committee recommended holding half the overtime money in reserve, to be returned to the treasury if the Police Department cannot spend it.

In voting to augment the library and parks budgets, the committee said it was trying to take a broader view of what is needed to make the city safer and more livable.

The addition of $4 million to the budget of the Recreation and Parks Department would restore staffing to its levels of last July 1. That would mean that 35 recreation centers would stay open 38 hours a week. Their hours had been reduced to 25 hours weekly.

The parks that have suffered reduced hours are mainly in middle-income communities, but the committee also recommended increased staffing at parks in lower-income areas.

The extra money will also assure that restroom cleaning can continue seven days a week and that lawn mowing is not reduced.

In another recommendation, the committee would add $2.9 million to the Library Department’s budget to bring staffing to the levels of a year ago. That would forestall threatened reductions in hours and services.

The money also assures staffing of the newly reopened Central Library and two San Fernando Valley libraries--the Platt branch and Mid-Valley Regional branch.

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg supported the action.

“You can’t make the city safer only by hiring more police,” said Goldberg, who is not on the committee. “Improving the quality of life in Los Angeles includes many things.”

In other actions, the committee recommended:

* Amending Riordan’s proposed tax reduction plan to include households, along with businesses. The mayor had called for removing a 7 1/2% surcharge on business taxes, imposed two years ago, but keeping an increase in residential fees to maintain trash trucks.

The budget committee’s action would reduce the business tax surcharge by half, or 3 3/4 percentage points. It would also cut the so-called sanitation equipment charge so that homeowners would pay $54 a year, instead of $72, and apartment dwellers would pay $36 annually, instead of $48.

* Doubling to $5 million funding for the controversial, church-sponsored Hope in Youth anti-gang program. Council members Mark Ridley-Thomas and Rita Walters had argued to the committee that the group, backed by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, was being given special treatment and not competing for funds as most community organizations do.

Despite the recommendation for the increased funds, Yaroslavsky and others said they will not give final approval until they get more evidence on how the anti-gang organization is spending its money.

* Beefing up the recruitment of women into the Police Department with a $750,000 addition to the Personnel Department’s budget. The council has directed that 43% of the force should be made up of women.