Are you convinced yet to come together as one and throw the bums out of CIty Hall?
Maybe this will help you.
City Controller Wendy Greuel just released this audit of how federal stimulus money has been used by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) (DPW-ARRA.pdf)(DOT ARRA.pdf). Here’s what she says in her press release:
“DPW has received $70.65 million and created or retained 45.46 jobs, though they are expected to create 238 jobs overall (the fraction of a job created or retained correlates to the number of actual hours works). LADOT has been awarded $40.8 million and created or retained 9 jobs, though they are expected to create 26 jobs overall. Overall, the Departments have received $111 million in federal stimulus funds out of the $594 million the City has been awarded so far and created or retained 54.46 jobs.
“I’m disappointed that we’ve only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million in ARRA funds. With our local unemployment rate over 12% we need to do a better job cutting the red tape and putting Angelenos back to work,” said City Controller Greuel.
“While it doesn’t appear that any of the ARRA funds were misspent, the City needs to do a better job expediting the process and creating jobs. We’re going to continue to audit how these funds are spent, to ensure that they are expended quickly and correctly. I’m pleased that since our auditors completed their field work, the Departments have begun to implement the changes we identified to help get this money out the door faster.”
Some of the findings of the audits included:
* DPW’s policies need to be strengthened in order to ensure transparent and accurate tracking of ARRA funds and related expenditures.
* The Department’s process for using work orders for ARRA projects makes it difficult to distinguish between ARRA-related expenditures and expenditures using City funds.
* Billing costs for reimbursement are not always submitted in a timely manner and did not always include all costs. In addition, the Bureau of Sanitation’s negotiated agreements for storm water projects stipulate quarterly– not monthly–billing.
* DPW’s existing processes may not be sufficient to expend funds quickly and promote job creation and stimulate the economy.
* Some of the Department’s ARRA-funded projects have taken many months to award contracts and start construction, meaning the local economy is not impacted immediately, which was the initial goal of ARRA.
* LADOT’s could improve their contracting processes to expedite ARRA funds being spent to create and retain jobs.
* Some of the LADOT’s ARRA-funded projects have taken many months to award contracts and start construction. For example, four of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) projects were not sent out to bid until at least seven months after they were authorized by the State/FHWA.
* The Department’s typical contracting processes, which follow a standard framework to comply with established Federal, State and City policies, may not be the best approach to ensure that ARRA projects have an immediate impact on local economy.
Wendy for Mayor! She is showing her independence from the 11% Mayor.
She is not a showboat, and wasn’t while on the Council.
Geezus f***ing chrisssss.
Please save my job and give me the $111,000,000 divided by 55 to do it.
I will then thank Los Angeles profusely and retire immediately with my $2 mil.
Beutner is too busy ass kissing the Chinese and Antonio ass kissing.. reporters,while people are loosing their houses. But they don`t care. They got their mansions.One thru Wall Street dishonest transactions and they other by fooling the voters.
We need for the Board of Public Works to account for the money that they received. Those positions just aren’t enough to justify the money that was received by them. The public’s services have taken too big a hit to be kept in the dark about how these funds were allocated. C’mon LA Times and Daily News…Where are you when we need you!
Where is the millions not spent and who is the person that is in charge to oversee how its spent? Please don’t tell me the FAILURE of a Mayor. Let’s see you have Bitter Bernie who gave a $30 million contract to buddy Magic Johnson who also donated to his campaign.
You have Janice Hahn who supports gangsters and was in cohoots with the LAX concessioner companies who also donated to her campaign. Then you have the Mexican Mafia group of Alarcon waiting to go to jail for 4 felonies. YOu have Ed Reyes the mini me gangster wannabe supporting the illegals in his area and the hell with good cops. You have Huizar, Ed Reyes and Garceitti who made the mess and got the city over 1,000 Marijuana shops cause they slept for 4 years. Then you have Cardenas who gave contracts to his sister, you have Greig Smith who has his own bag of tricks and corruption in CD2….and it goes on on .. GO GET THEM LA CLEAN SWEEP
Are the Feds going to investigate LA politicians. Don’t think so. So who cares where the money went. It is the same old, same old.
How sad that the City of Los Angeles continues to layoff employees, thereby adding to the stress on the unemployment system, at a time when tens of millions of dollars goes unused.
Wendy for Mayor? Really? Where the hell was she when these checks were being written? And even now, in retrospect, where did all the money go?
Wendy for Mayor, no. Wendy for co-defendant, si.
2 Mil per job. Are these jobs in the city of Bell?
Wasn’t Laura Chick watching over the Federal Stimulus money? Or was that just for the State? The more I think about it, how does the stimulus money get sent here? Where does it get sent? To the general fund? Who decides how it is spent? Someone has to be in charge of that amount of money? So many questions, and no one to answer them.
David in Tarzana…nice to see your comment. We may have discussed it once at Jerry’s Deli in WH!
Anonymous at 9:12 pm. Yes, I do believe we did. Glad to see that the national media and blogs are picking up on this story this morning.
Sometimes when I read this stuff, I think my head will explode!
And like everyone else, I want one of those rwo-million-dollar jobs. Geesh!
Antonio should fire Beutner. Isn`t he the jobs czar, who is also overseeing these 2 departments? He is busy, however, giving sweetheart deals and contracts to his buddies.
What makes me crazy about these kind of stories is that the feds have done their jobs to make the money available and the local city government screws it up. The bureaucracy has has vested interest in making things NOT work, or as I call it the institutionalization of the poor. It is emblematic of the same philosophy that Jaime Escalante fought at LAUSD.
Why don’t you go read about the ARRA money yourself?
http://recovery.lacity.org/index.htm
Federal stimulus money should be required to be placed in an escrow account instead of just being co-mingled with general funds. That way, each and every dollar spent is accountable – who authorized the expenditure, who was paid, and why.
That prevents money from just disappearing. The report in the LATimes this morning stated that some of the funds were tied up in long term negotiations and contracts and hadn’t actually been spent, in other words, the funds were committed but were still in the bank.
That only makes it more difficult for an auditor to find. And we, the taxpayers, can never get a straight answer about where the money went.
Hey, people, this is our money, it came out of your checking account when you paid your taxes – it’s not “government” money.
Thanks 10:03 am for the link!
According to the city’s ARRA website they have created or saved 936.49 jobs to date. See for yourself here:
http://recovery.lacity.org/stellent/groups/electedofficials/@myr_larcvry_contributor/documents/contributor_web_content/lacityp_009306.pdf
So does that mean that the city is reporting 936.49 and Wendy says it’s really 55? What, the city misrepresenting the facts? Say it ain’t so!
It seems like everyone is missing the point. The stimulus money is creating more government jobs and doing it very very inefficiently. Government jobs do not create wealth. California is drowning in government jobs as is the rest of the country.
Private sector jobs create wealth which in turn pays for government jobs. The system is out of balance. Too many government jobs may seem like a solution but all it really leads to is an ongoing downward spiral of shrinking economic growth and lower standards of living for everyone.
If the city of LA is this inefficient, just consider how inefficient the federal government is with tax payer money.
This latest revelation is just a small window into the economic disaster that the whole country is becomming. If you are not worried you should be.
Liars, damn liars and politicians. See at 7:24 into part 2 of speech – Sarah Palin use these figures as a critique on Obama’s recovery package.
55 jobs at $111 million. Sounds like Hollywood, not public works department.