Unions Sue Over Shift of DWP Revenues : Budget: City electrical workers and engineers file legal action, saying the transfer to cover police costs will use up money needed for repairs.

Two Los Angeles city unions filed a lawsuit Friday against Mayor Richard Riordan and the Los Angeles City Council in an attempt to block a financial transfer that is central to the city’s plan to pay for a larger police force.

The unions charged in their suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, that the shift of nearly $200 million from the Department of Water and Power to the city treasury will prevent the city-owned utility from properly maintaining its facilities.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18, and the Engineers and Architects Assn. alleged in the lawsuit that the $197-million transfer violates the City Charter, which only permits the shift of surplus funds.

In previous years, the DWP has transferred about 5% of its gross revenues to the city. But Riordan’s budget, approved by the City Council, transfers an additional $75 million in the fiscal year that began Friday.

The extra money is almost enough to pay for the $83-million first-year cost of the mayor’s police expansion.

But Brian D’Arcy, business manager of the electrical workers union, said the transfer leaves too little for the DWP to maintain water and power lines.

“These guys are acting like bagmen when their obligation is to distribute water and power at reasonable rates,” D’Arcy said. “We are not here just to accomplish the mayor’s political agenda. They don’t seem to get that.”

The engineers and electrical workers are threatened with substantial job losses under a recently released audit.

Riordan was out of town and could not be reached for comment. But his legal counsel, Karen Rotschafer, said she did not think the lawsuit will prevent or delay the transfer.

“We have always held that what we are doing is perfectly legal under the City Charter,” Rotschafer said. “We feel the city is able to receive surplus funds and we have identified those funds.”

Most of the extra money that DWP managers proposed transferring is to come from the sale of surplus fuel oil and property. The oil was to be used to generate electricity in emergencies, but engineers say they now have backup natural gas supplies. A variety of properties might be sold by the DWP, the largest publicly owned utility in the nation, including former reservoir and power plant sites.

DWP managers who had committed to the larger transfer when the budget was drafted in April had begun to cast doubt in recent weeks about whether the sales would produce $75 million.

Ken Miyoshi, the utility’s chief, said last month that he might be able to deliver as little as half of that amount. When two of Riordan’s appointees on the DWP commission tried to guarantee at least $10 million of the transfer immediately, Miyoshi and others balked. They said that taking the money could cut into repairs and the replacement of antiquated water mains.

D’Arcy conceded that the unions might not be able to block the entire transfer. But “what we are asking is for somebody to explain where they are going to get this money,” he said.