How bad is the city’s budget crisis? I’ll tell you how bad it is, Controller Wendy Greuel predicts that next year’s revenue will be all of $16.8 million below this year’s — a decline of less than one-half of one percent, .04 to be exact, on a general fund budget of $4.2 billion!.
That’s right, it’s negligible. It’s why 7,000 jobs have to be eliminated through payoffs, layoffs and transfers. It’s why the city has to defer all the costs it can into future years, borrow to pay its current bills, why it has to hold fire sales to get rid of revenue streams like parking structures, golf courses, the convention center.
It’s why City Hall is in a panic.
Simply put, there is no revenue crisis. There isn’t even a spending crisis. There is a leadership crisis and a crisis in confidence.
What may be the most interesting fact in Greuel’s otherwise unremarkable report — unremarkable since almost all the information is already known and her report does little more than deflect responsibility — is that that the city’s special funds are likely to drop by $140 million next year or 7 percent. That’s significant because like the Harbor and Airport which have suffered revenue declines, the City Council keeps thinking they can put 4,000 people on to those payrolls and not lay off anybody.
The only place left to avoid layoffs is the Department of Water and Power which is looking for surcharges supposedly to replace its vast portfolio of dirty coal-burning plants and massive rate hikes supposedly for solar and wind power and to rebuild its deteriorating power grid.
That makes it difficult to pack a whole lot of workers onto the DWP payroll, especially when the people being hit are mostly child care workers who serve the poor, messengers who make the library system by moving books to borrowers’ neighborhoods and clerks who are already in abundance at the utility.
Despite the crisis and intense pressure to impose a 20 percent rate hike by April 1, the DWP Commission canceled its meeting Tuesday for lack of a quorum. The pressure comes from the need to sign four contracts to buy clean energy on the open market at premium prices to meet the 20 percent renewable goal by year’s end.
The lack of a quorum came about in part by the departure of Commissioner Edith Ramirez, leaving a vacancy that a mayor in touch with reality would fill from the DWP citizen committees to answer demands for a ratepayer advocate. Fat chance.
Not to worry, the fate of your city is in good hands if you believe Greuel or Council President Eric Garcetti who were interviewed Wednesday night on Warren Olney’s Which Way LA? I was the skeptic brought in as counterpoint so I can tell you I haven’t heard such fairy tales since I listened to Deputy Mayor Larry Frank last Saturday at the Budget LA meeting.
Garcetti, who has the reassuring demeanor of the chaplain on the Titanic, actually said “core services” like the libraries won’t be hurt when between early retirements and layoffs, it’s certain that hours of operation will be cut by 20 to 30 percent and the book delivery system will be decimated.
With the certainty of a true believer, Garcetti — who Olney noted refused to appear on the show with me — spoke of the enormous care and diligence that has gone into everything the mayor and Council have done to respond rapidly to the budget crisis with detailed plans to avoid great harm to public services.
Greuel was little more forthcoming and did her best to show her own diligence at proposing paperwork to show she’s doing her job as controller while ignoring she was a Council leader when nothing was done about the falloff in revenue and every warning was ignored.
The Council, on the other hand, is showing signs of growing nervousness about the fact that they have approved the non-plan to solve the budget crisis without any understanding about what they have done.
You can ask any of the department heads, all 65 of them, whether there has been a clear direction given them on how to reduce spending or whose job to eliminate. The only direction they are getting from the mayor’s office is they prove their obedience or they’ll be fired.
It’s only dawned on the Council now that they and the mayor have not provided any direction other than cut, cut, and cut and then berated them and threatened them with dismissal because services are being slashed.
What could they have thought was going to happen when they protected 75 percent of the work force from elimination and ordered staffing in parks, libraries, planning, building and safety and most other departments cut in half.
Of all the promises the mayor has broken in his life, the most destructive is the one he made a year ago about cutting city staff surgically, not with a meat cleaver.
In fact, they took a shotgun to it and let anyone retire who wanted to with a sweetheart deal and then fired off a few more shells in any direction and called it a layoff plan.
They’re scrambling on the fly now to figure out what hell they have wrought. It’s gotten harder to blame the bureaucrats when they don’t know who’s working for them and who isn’t and what the leadership’s priorities are.
Tensions are rising, fingers are pointing, everybody is looking for a fall guy. That’s the easy part, it’s you and me. We’re the ones who will suffer, who will get stuck with the bills one way or another and suffer the consequences of a city in chaos.
Maybe they are right about protecting the cops. We’re going to need them in the months ahead.
City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said that would put a significant dent in the city’s projected $485 million budget deficit in 2010-2011.
But Personnel Department assistant general manager Phyllis Lynes said processing layoffs takes time because of civil service rules.
When Councilman Bernard Parks asked whether all 4,000 municipal jobs can be eliminated by July 1, she responded, “I don’t see how.”
http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/city-layoffs-may-not-save-enough-money-20100303
Regarding DWP’s efforts to get away from Coal burning plants, how effective are there existing renewable projects?
What about the Pine Tree Wind Mills, how much power is really available? How does its costs compare with other options including clean burning natural gas power plants?
What I don’t understand: why does controller’s report show DWP utility user tax coming to City? Doesn’t DWP execute a Transfer of “excess power funds” and not the UUT?
The City Council can take only small comfort if they save the police from cuts and decimate the rest of the City. If civil unrest occurs and the people storm City Hall… the police are probably not going to defend the Council members from a very unhappy populace. I see this City Council gone at the hands of a very angry population, and very soon.
Those “non violent” inmates being released are not that “non violent. They are felony suspects that pleaded their case down not to go through the court system and are called non violent. THere is a 85% Recidivism rate among prisioners released. Is this a scare tactic, do you really want to find out? I don’t think so. Ron is right we will need the cops cause the gang members are now using Social media like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to connect. If they are that connected you can bet they are monitoring what is going on with in the city. They are unemployed losers who prey on the most volunerable.
Why are city council members still SPENDING MONEY IF THE CITY IS IN THE RED????? Parks has a motion tomorrow to spend $75,000 for a homicide award. Then there’s tons of other motions moving around and transfering millions from weird accounts I’ve never seen. What is going on?
Department of Building and Safety request for $568,568 from the Construction Services Trust Fund to replace the Automated Cashier System.
Why are they continuing to hire architects and engineers from Prop Q money when all the construction on police stations are complete? More corruption….
During 2002-03, the City’s Information Technology Agency (ITA) argued to the City Council that ITA needed an additional Temporary Telecommunications Regulatory Officer (TRO) position to help ITA complete cable television franchise renewal negotiations.
ITA then proceeded to hire two TROs who had no cable television regulatory work experience. The Temporary TRO hire, William Imperial, was noteworthy for having resigned from the California Bar after having been repeatedly disciplined by the California Bar. See:
http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/member_detail.aspx?x=98400
Not surprisingly, ITA failed to complete cable television franchise renewal negotiations, thus wasting thousands of hours of City employee time and hundreds of thousands of City dollars, if not more.
One of the above two TRO hires (Richard Benbow) resigned from City employment and now works for Time Warner Cable.
Mr. Imperial, the “temporary” hire is still at the City, collecting over $120,000 a year in salary plus City benefits.
Does ITA have a justifiable reason for continuing to employ Mr. Imperial?
Not once, during his tenure at the City, has the City ever imposed monetary penalties against a cable television company for a violation of the City’s video/cable customer service standards.
Cable television franchise fee reviews are farmed out to private CPAs. The City doesn’t need to pay someone $120,000 to renew these contracts with outside CPAs.
Mr. Imperial has done virtually nothing to put meaningful Public, Education, and Governmental Access programming on Time Warner’s Cable System. There is a bulletin board on one channel in the 90s and another potential channel lies fallow. Imperial is not significantly responsible for the programming on Channels 35 and 36.
Why does the City continue wasting money on William Imperial?
Well there are easier plans then this pork barrel legislation. Have the council return its 30% salary increase from last year, cut all those employees from their roster they do not need. Freeze police and fire hiring. No pay cuts for police and fire, they are the ones who provide us with the services we need. However we need DWP, to also provide their part, they are taking enough money from us specially from the IBEW.
Even City Counsel and the Mayor should be able to grasp this concept..”You reap what you sow”..
Even City Counsel and the Mayor should be able to grasp this concept..”You reap what you sow”..
Here is a simple concept even the City Counsel and Mayor should be able to grasp..”you reap what you sow”..simple.
Ron,
I called LADOT today. I asked the name of the person that answered the phone. He said that it did not matter – he was being transferred.
The LADOT has many projects that affect the quality of life of this city. And if they are not done properly, they will lead to many motor vehicle accidents.
We can’t afford to have our essential services cut.