HUD Asks Refund on Housing Project Patrols : Law enforcement: Federal agency’s audit claims that $4.3 million was ‘unnecessarily’ paid to police and sheriff’s departments.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s and Long Beach Police departments “unnecessarily” charged the county more than $4.3 million for special protection that was never provided to three low-cost housing projects for the poor, according to an audit by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For more than five years, the county housing authority needlessly paid for “basic law enforcement service which it should have gotten at no cost,” according to the recent HUD audit.

Now HUD wants Long Beach police to pay back the $1.4 million they charged to provide special protection to the Carmelitos Housing Project, which encompasses more than 700 dwelling units in North Long Beach. Auditors also have recommended that the Sheriff’s Department reimburse the county $2.9 million it charged for special protection to the Nueva Maravilla Housing Project in East Los Angeles and the Harbor Hills Housing Project in Lomita.

The county sought the special protection to improve safety in the government-run projects, which house thousands of poor families and senior citizens. But the law enforcement services both agencies provided “did not appear to be above and beyond normal services” and should have been free, according to the Sept. 19 audit recently released by HUD.

County, police and sheriff’s officials disagree, arguing that the three housing projects received at least nine hours a day of patrol car service, far more than the average neighborhood. They also were provided with foot patrols, undercover officers and community meetings attended by law enforcement officers.

Backed by Long Beach police and sheriff’s representatives, county officials are appealing the audit, which reviewed law enforcement service provided between Oct. 1, 1985, and March 31, 1991.

“We have taken a very strong position against that opinion,” said Carlos Jackson, executive director of the county’s Community Development Commission, which serves as the county housing authority and is funded by HUD.

Jackson questioned the methodology involved in the audit and said that HUD talked to the wrong officials at the police and sheriff’s departments. “They didn’t talk with people who are familiar with the contract,” Jackson said.

In a Dec. 22 response to HUD, Jackson wrote that both law enforcement agencies provide more than basic service. Long Beach police, for example, gave Carmelitos residents more than twice as many patrol hours per day than were given to residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Last month, the East Los Angeles sheriff’s station reported providing the Nueva Maravilla Housing Project with about 40% more patrol time than its contract required. “For that small little square to get that type of police service is not usual,” Sheriff’s Lt. Robert Hoffman said.

HUD auditors noted that representatives from both law enforcement agencies were in and out of the projects and failed to continuously patrol them. But Hoffman said it would be foolish to patrol the projects continuously because everyone would know “when we’d be there.”

“I don’t understand how they concluded that (the services are standard.) Where I live, I can guarantee you I don’t get nine hours of a policeman,” Hoffman said. “And I know we’re exceeding the nine hours.”

Long Beach Asst. City Manager John Shirey agreed with county and sheriff’s officials, saying: “We provided the service, so we’re not going to pay back for service we provided.”

Jackson estimated that the two law enforcement agencies saved the county about $2.5 million since 1985. Prior to that, the projects were patrolled by the county’s own, more costly, police force.

Although Jackson strongly defended the service provided by Long Beach police and the sheriff, the county last year severed its contracts with those agencies and hired a private security company to patrol the Carmelitos and Harbor Hills projects, Jackson said.

“We needed more foot patrols to really work in the community and get to know the residents. We wanted to do more preventive work,” Jackson said.