NEWS ANALYSIS : Riordan Police Staffing Plan May Not Be a Quick Fix : LAPD: His proposal to use more reserves and retirees to rapidly beef up patrols faces legal and practical obstacles.

Mayor-elect Richard Riordan’s short-term strategy of using reserve officers and police retirees to quickly expand the Los Angeles Police Department’s patrol force will be an early test of his ability to move his agenda of change at City Hall.

Details of the Riordan plan are still being developed, but aides say it is a top priority for the mayor-elect’s transition committee.

“There will be (a plan) and it will be soon,” said Daniel Blackburn, a transition team spokesman.

But, as Riordan undoubtedly will discover on an array of his initiatives, the city’s biggest problems--including a shortage of police--rarely yield to simple solutions.

Riordan has said he plans to use LAPD reserves and retirees as a sort of rapid deployment force to help hold the line on crime until his proposed 3,000-officer buildup of the department--to be funded through leasing Los Angeles International Airport--can be implemented over the next four years.

Drawing liberally on ideas of UCLA professor James Q. Wilson, a nationally recognized police expert, Riordan has said he would increase the number of shifts required of volunteer reserve officers and try to entice LAPD retirees to return on a part-time basis. As an incentive, he has said these officers could be paid $100 per shift.

Riordan’s proposals come as the LAPD takes a heightened interest in reserves as a partial solution to its perennial staffing shortages. With about 7,700 sworn officers, the department has one of the lowest officer-to-resident ratios of any big city in the nation. Reserves, assuming a greater role in day-to-day operations of the department, are saving the city millions of dollars each year and are expected to account for one in every four Los Angeles police officers by the end of the decade.

But as a quick fix, Riordan’s proposals to tap reserves and retirees face considerable legal and practical obstacles, interviews indicate.

“It sounds like a great idea, but it’s not that simple,” said LAPD Cmdr. Dan Watson, who oversees personnel and reserve officers.

“If we start paying people to do shifts, then we are looking at part-time police officers,” Watson said, adding that it would involve a fundamental change in the traditions and laws that guide the LAPD.

It is not clear, Watson said, how many additional shifts the 900 current LAPD reserves would be willing to fill. Only about half of the reserves, who receive a monthly stipend of $15 and are required to work at least two shifts per month, are fully trained to carry guns and work in patrol cars.

Others are so-called “technical reserves” who do not carry weapons but can work station assignments and free regular officers for patrol.

As for retired officers, officials say many may not be willing to work black-and-white units at the times they are most needed--nights, weekends and holidays. Past surveys of retirees have shown limited interest in those shifts.

“Once you retire and get accustomed to getting the weekend off, you get kind of spoiled,” said Police Commission President Jesse A. Brewer, a retired LAPD assistant chief. Retired officers he has talked with “are not breaking down the front door of Parker Center (police headquarters) to get back,” Brewer said.

Also, at least for the next year, training new reservists, or giving retired officers brushup courses, would disrupt already scheduled Police Academy training for new full-time officers, which officials agree is a top priority.

Beyond that, Watson said, a series of changes in city law, some requiring voter approval, would be needed to hire part-time reservists or use retired officers for longer than one year.

“There are a whole variety of issues. . . . (The department) is not against the idea, but we are cautious of the benefits of it,” Watson said.

Riordan also may have to risk alienating the Police Protective League, the powerful rank-and-file officers union, which has resisted the idea of increased use of reserve officers.

Thwarting the league could be politically uncomfortable for the new mayor, since it played a key role in getting him elected. Not only did officers call voters and walk key San Fernando Valley precincts, but the league also helped douse a potentially crippling controversy over Riordan’s alcohol-related arrests by strongly reaffirming its endorsement of him.

A league spokesman, Geoffrey Garfield, said the police union has not seen details of Riordan’s plan to use reserves or retirees, and therefore has taken no position.

League President William Violante was not available for comment this week, but in an earlier Times interview he expressed strong concerns about expanded use of volunteer reserve officers.

“This is the department’s and the city’s way of trying to get around hiring more police officers,” Violante said. “Just because you put a body on the streets does not mean you’re fulfilling the public’s mandate for more police.

“And even though reserves do a good job, the public demands fully trained and experienced career police officers. Schemes to put more uniforms on the street is not what the public is clamoring for.”

As for bringing back retirees, Garfield said the key question for the union would be: “How temporary is it going to be?”

City Councilman Marvin Braude, chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, pledged to work with Riordan but said that all proposals to hire more police--even reserves and retirees--will cost money. Already strapped for cash, and facing the imminent loss of at least $75 million in state support, the city will not be able to increase police staffing without more revenue, Braude said.

Despite the hurdles, Riordan may have a window of political opportunity when he takes office July 1.

Elected officials know that the city is sinking in red ink--and that Riordan’s notion of leasing out Los Angeles International Airport to fund regular officers is a distant hope at best.

“The sentiment around here is (we must) find new ways, creative ways, to take care of our policing problem,” said Tammy Metcalfe, a council legislative analyst who specializes in police issues. “There are many, many more ways in which we can use reserves in a very productive way.”

The department already has been moving in that direction, with a goal of having one-fourth of the department made up of volunteers by the end of the decade.

The LAPD reserve officer roster has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Dozens of reserve officer applicants were recently turned away because there was no room in the Police Academy to train them.

“They’re beating down our door,” Watson said. He said reserves average three volunteer shifts per month--one more than required--and some work as many as 15 shifts.

By accepting no benefits or wages other than the $15-a-month stipend, the LAPD reserves saved the city about $3 million in salaries and other costs last year.

Chief Willie L. Williams said reserves are crucial to his department’s efforts.

“We need volunteers,” the chief said. “We need a lot of assistance. We are a very, very small department. We are stretched and the rubber band can’t stretch any more.”