Mayor Releases Budget

Neighborhood Councils are Skeptical

By Kevin Walker, Editorial Intern

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently released the proposed 2012-13 city budget that, according to critics, does little more than kick the can down the line in closing a projected $238 million deficit.

Villaraigosa’s budget attempts to eliminate the deficit with a combination of pension reforms, revenue increases, layoffs and efficiency boosts. The problem is that it is a structural deficit where long term expenditures outstrip receipts. No matter how many short term cost cuts are made, the structural deficit remains.

“No one is willing to step up to the plate and tell us what's going on,” said Jack Humphreville, president of the Department of Water and Power Advocacy Committee. “There’s no basic reform here."

At issue is the employee compensation and retirement system, which according to the mayor’s budget proposal, accounts for 51 percent of the deficit. The budget proposes to raise the normal retirement age to 67 and limiting the maximum retirement allowance to 75 percent of final earnings.

If an employee retired today, he or she could potentially make 100 percent of what he or she made while working.

Humphreville and others have pointed out that the reforms won’t apply to current or retired city employees and that the slower rate of hiring will further reduce intended savings to the city.

“Raising the retirement age from 55 to 67 is great, except it should've been done back when they were actually hiring people.” remarked Doug Epperhart, member of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council.

Attempts to contact the Mayor’s Office were made but a response was not attained in time for publication.

Civic leaders also question the mayor’s proposal to eliminate 669 civilian employee positions from the city’s workforce.

They say that the cuts disproportionately affect the Los Angeles Police Department and will take sworn officers off of the streets in order to compensate for the loss of civilian clerks and administrators.

“Its not evenly distributed,” Epperhart said. “Most of those cuts are going to be from the police department … they’re laying off 159 people."

Others doubt that the $26 million the layoffs will save is even a legitimate figure given that 438 of the 669 positions to be cut are unfilled.

Other organizations have proposed their own solutions to the budget deficit. In March the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates released a white paper with 21 recommendations to help close the shortfall, the first being a declaration of a fiscal emergency in the city that would allow Villaraigosa to implement a yearlong salary reduction for city employees.

The recommendation, which did not make it into the mayor’s proposed budget, is symptomatic of those on the neighborhood councils, like Humphreville and Epperhart who want a quick resolution to the budget shortfall.

Some have speculated that without drastic reforms, Los Angeles may be forced to file for bankruptcy, however, the idea has yet to catch on among community leaders.

“Bankruptcy is not a solution,” said Bob Gelfand, president of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition. “It’s a last and final approach when you can’t do anything else."