LAUSD Police 'Dramatically Diminished' Following Funding Cuts

LOS ANGELES, CA - Two months after a divided Los Angeles Unified
school board slashed funding for its police department by more than a third,
the contours of a dramatically diminished force are emerging, a newspaper
reported.

Under a plan presented to the board on Tuesday, police officers would
be removed from school campuses and weekend patrols meant to protect schools
from vandalism would be eliminated, among other cuts, the Los Angeles Times
reported Friday.

The debate over the proposed cuts, set for later this month, marks a
wide split on the board over the role that armed, uniformed officers should
play in providing security to hundreds of thousands of students enrolled at
more than 900 campuses, according to the Times.

With some on the seven-member board calling for the complete
elimination of the police department and others opposed to cuts, the sharply
opposing views played out in the streets outside the district's downtown
headquarters this week, where protesters in favor of police reforms sparred
verbally with police supporters.

In a signal of how unresolved the issue remains for many, a district
task force said it intends to survey high school students, parents and
employees around the district to evaluate opinions on school police, The Times
reported.

Embedded in the proposal to cut spending is a recent district effort
to rein in the widespread use of overtime in the police department. The
practice has resulted in mid-level supervisors, detectives and rank-and-file
officers taking home some of the highest pay in the nation's second-largest
school system, with about two dozen officers earning at least $190,000 last
year, The Times reported.

The board first took up the idea of overhauling its police force this
summer amid national protests over killings of Black people by police officers.
Confronted with impassioned demands that they move decisively to rethink
policing at schools, board members decided in a 4-3 vote on June 30 to cut $25
million from the police department's $70 million budget, a 36% reduction. The
decision was largely viewed as a preliminary step by the board majority toward
shutting down the department entirely.

—City News Service