Riordan Weighs LAPD Overtime Pay : Transition: Mayor-elect does not specify where money would come from. He is quick to assure Valley business leaders the area will not be neglected.

Acknowledging obstacles to his plan to increase police strength by greater use of reservists, Los Angeles Mayor-elect Richard Riordan said Thursday that he is considering deploying 400 to 500 more officers a day by paying them overtime.

“This would ultimately be cheaper and more efficient and more quick than the other plans,” he said.

He estimated the cost at no more than $40 million a year and said it could increase the number of police on the streets by nearly one-third.

Riordan made his comments during question-and-answer sessions with business leaders from the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, and with reporters.

The persistent theme of the business leaders was that they were tired of having the Valley treated as a neglected stepchild by City Hall, and hoped for a warm embrace from a Riordan Administration.

He assured them: “The health and future of this city depends on keeping the Valley happy. You cannot turn the inner cities around by disenfranchising the middle class.”

Looking refreshed after five days of fly fishing, bicycle riding and ice skating in Sun Valley, Idaho, Riordan also said he has forgiven the $2 million he loaned his own campaign--bringing to $6 million the amount of his own money he spent to get elected.

Riordan’s alternative was to hold fund-raisers to pay himself back--which might have created an awkward impression.

“I didn’t think of it in those terms,” he said. “But . . . I think people will have more confidence in me if I just . . . get on with running the city . . . and not raising money.”

He also disclosed that he plans to employ some corporate and academic leaders as high-level volunteers in the mayor’s office “to help us get things going in the right direction.” He declined to name names.

He said his transition staff’s study of the mayor’s office shows a need for restructuring.

“Right now, the government in L.A. is structured in a way that I believe there are like 80 top people that report directly to the mayor. You’ve go to be able to delegate to strong people under you, because nobody can handle 80 people--not efficiently,” he said.

In disclosing his latest plan to put more police on the streets quickly, Riordan referred to a Times article Wednesday that suggested that his idea of adding more reservists and retired police officers “is not going to work that well.”

The article pointed up a number of obstacles, such as police union opposition to increased reliance on reservists and a presumed lack of enthusiasm among retirees to work nights and weekends, when they are needed most.

“When plan A doesn’t work, you go to plan B,” he said. “When plan B doesn’t work you go to plan Z. But you have to get more police on the streets.”

Riordan said he has had in-depth discussions with Police Chief Willie L. Williams on alternatives, including transferring officers from desk jobs to the streets and paying more overtime.

Paying more overtime is simpler, he said.

But he was not specific about where the money would come from.

“I think we can get the money in a variety of ways that I mentioned during my campaign, for example from the airport, from putting rubbish collection, street maintenance out to competitive bid, by consolidating departments of the city,” he said.

“By the way, the more and more we’ve gotten into the city (during the transition) the more and more we see areas that we can get money . . . It could happen fairly quickly.”

Riordan said his transition advisers have already begun identifying considerable waste at City Hall. “Believe me,” the mayor-elect said in an interview with The Times, “we’re going to find tens of millions of dollars we never dreamed were there--pockets of money (and) contracts let out in convoluted ways.”

Riordan did not elaborate, but later his transition team leader, William Wardlaw, would offer only one example. He said transition officials found “the mayor’s office has 30 automobiles” available for staff members at taxpayer expense. “Beginning July 1, there won’t be 30 cars assigned to the mayor’s office,” Wardlaw said.

Riordan estimated the cost at between $30 million and $40 million to pay overtime to 400 to 500 officers who are now forced to take compensatory time off each day because the department has no money to pay them overtime.

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Dan Watson, in charge of the department’s personnel matters, said “the figure we use is that we have 300 to 400 officers on any given day off because they’re taking compensatory time.”

Being able to pay those officers overtime rather than give them time off has been an objective of the department for years, he said.

Most of the officers sitting at home could be at work on patrol or as detectives, Watson said. But he said he could not verify Riordan’s cost estimates nor Riordan’s statement that the number of police on the street would increase by around 30%.

The Police Department has shrunk from 8,200 officers in 1991 to about 7,700 now--a victim of the city’s fiscal crisis. The Times calculated that in 1991, the department was able to muster only 381 officers on an average shift to handle radio calls. By last fall, the LAPD was able to put only 279 officers in radio calls on an average shift.

In other news, Wardlaw said Riordan advisers have begun seeking contributions to a $100,000 city fund that will finance the transition effort and part of the July 1 inaugural.

He said donations, in increments of $5,000 and perhaps even $10,000, will be sought from Riordan’s earlier campaign supporters and others willing to give. He acknowledged these could include special interests doing business with the city.

As part of its transition effort, the Riordan camp has asked all of the city’s department heads to provide an assessment of their departments--by answering questions about budgets, staffing, outside contracts and other topics. The officials were given two days to complete the questionnaire.

At least one department head, who asked not to be named, said his first assignment from the mayor-elect represented a welcome change from the style of the Bradley Administration.

“I’ve been a general manager here for years and I don’t think cumulatively that I have had two hours in that time to sit down and talk to the mayor’s staff,” said the official. “I think this sets a tone that they are going to be real serious and aggressive.”

Times staff writers James Rainey and Rich Connell contributed to this story.