April 14, 2014 | By Ben Welsh, David Zahniser and Emily Alpert Reyes
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's first proposed budget calls for hiring 140 firefighters and the start of a sweeping overhaul of the city's 911 dispatch system, part of a bid to speed the response to hundreds of thousands of calls for help each year. The revamped dispatch operation, outlined Monday by the mayor's office as it presented an $8.1-billion spending plan for the coming fiscal year, would unify separate police and fire emergency call centers and gradually replace some uniformed firefighters with lower-paid civilian phone operators.