L.A.’s parking meters have been receiving a lot of “F”s recently.

That’s F, as in the FAIL sign that pops up when the meters malfunction. Then there are all those plastics bags that get tied over tied up around broken machines.

Since June, the city of Los Angeles has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of parking meters on the fritz. In all, more than 1,200 of the 42,000 parking meters were reported broken throughout the city last month, compared with 800 back in June.

That might be good news for frustrated motorists in search of free parking (no ticketing at failed meters), but the city is losing at least $200,000 a year.

The main problem: a shortage of repair people. Alan Willis, bureau chief for parking meter maintenance with the Department of Transportation, said he has only 19 meter “technicians,” down from 24 a year ago.

Willis said the city’s three-year hiring freeze that ended July 1 is largely responsible. Several technicians who retired at the end of last year weren’t replaced immediately. The city is recruiting more, but none are expected to come on board until January.

For now, each repair person is responsible for more than 2,000 meters.

The most common reason the meters get broken is people jamming coins into them, Willis said. Most of the time it’s accidental, but Willis said his technicians report more people intentionally jamming meters so they can come back and collect the backed-up coins.

“We’re seeing this in areas with high concentrations of homeless people, like downtown,” he said. The failure rate in downtown is about 5 percent, about twice the citywide average.