Budget committee backs midyear plan to add LAPD recruits, citing internal offsets

The Los Angeles City Budget & Finance Committee voted Jan. 20 to approve a midyear hiring plan that would fund 130 additional sworn hires for the Los Angeles Police Department, a move officials said is intended to address attrition and boost deployment levels.

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo told the committee the adopted budget had funded 240 recruits and a subsequent action added 40 more; the current proposal would bring total funded hires for fiscal 2025–26 to 280 and a projected deployment level of roughly 8,555 officers once attrition is accounted for. "The proposal before you would bring, and would provide funding for 130 additional officers," Szabo said during his presentation.

Szabo and department staff said the city can cover roughly $3,000,000 of this year’s cost through internal offsets within the department — including savings tied to a newly established voluntary overtime bank and accumulated overtime accounts — and recommended four personnel positions and about $400,000 for the personnel department to process applications. Szabo said the volunteer overtime bank has produced about $4,000,000 in savings so far and that a year‑end balance in the accumulated overtime account supports the midyear transfers.

Councilmember McCosker offered an amendment swapping two proposed personnel classifications to better match departmental hiring needs; the amendment also included a request for an exemption authorization from the mayor’s office for one of the swapped positions. The committee discussed risks to about 83 civilian positions currently in substitute authorities and the need to move those roles into funded vacancies where possible.

Councilmember Hernandez cast the lone dissent, saying she had "too many unanswered questions" about the proposal and the broader budget before voting no. The motion passed 3–1 and will move to the full council with the committee’s amendment.

Next steps: Staff will return with evaluations of the voluntary overtime bank and any updated cost estimates as part of the Financial Status Report and budget development process. The CAO estimated the ongoing cost of the expanded hiring as about $25,000,000 per year.