NC Emergency budget Meeting Update

CityWatch, Pub: Jan 15, 2010
Vol 8 Issue 4
By Jay Handal

(Note: LA Neighborhood Council leaders met for an Emergency City Budget Crisis Meeting on Sunday … studied the extraordinary depth of the City’s financial crisis … voted to take actions that would ensure Neighborhood Councils a voice in the budget solutions discussion. Action has begun: A website dedicated to this NC effort is up and posted daily … www.budgetla.org; a second special meeting has been tentatively set for Saturday afternoon, January 23; an NC Budget Advisory Committee was formed to research and recommend; members of that committee met with LA’s financial chief, Miguel Santana on Thursday. Here is the report on that meeting.)

Jack Humphreville and Dr. Dan Wiseman and I, members of the Neighborhood Council’s Budget Advisory Committee, met Thursday with the Chief Administrative Officer of Los Angeles, Mr. Miguel Santana. The CAO is the City’s financial chief.

The meeting was requested in an attempt to have a first hand report as to where we as a City are fiscally, as well as to discuss and point out issues pertaining to budget.

All went into the meeting with eyes wide open, and hopes that Santana would be open, forthright and transparent.

We were not disappointed. Not at all. A breath of fresh air in the City government system.

Many points were discussed, including but not limited to the 12 points discussed in March with the Mayor at the budget reps meeting.

Miguel read them and was particularly interested in the notion of no selling of assets for one time budget gain. There was a discussion of this point, with Jack and Dan pointing out ways to hold the assets and increase revenues with them. Miguel made lots of notes and stated that the points were very interesting and would look into them.

When asked if the deficit has increased by 75 Million as we were told last Sunday at the NC Emergency Budget meeting, he did confirm this. He also stated that for the next three months, such a leap in the deficit is not anticipated again.

He also confirmed that the projected budget deficit for 2010/11 is $400 million, most of which is driven by the pension costs.

Further, he confirmed that the City’s reserves are low and need to be replenished, and that we need to find ways to make that happen, at the same time as increasing the threshold on how and under what circumstances the reserves can be tapped.

In discussing fiscal year 2010/11, he pointed to a 4-point strategy his office is looking at:

1-Modernization of the work force
2- Asking ourselves: what the core services are?
3- What services are important to have but can be done more efficiently by outside resources
4- Adopt real financial management policies to prevent us from this type of situation in the future.

All acknowledged that there will need to be cuts and consolidations. The look of our city government as we have known it will be very different going forward.

Pension reform, civil service reform, change in labor negotiations all will add up to a more focused and efficient organization.

A Financial Status Report (FSR) is due out on February 1st. Miguel pointed out that the report would point out a potential series of reductions, and that every department will probably be touched by these service reductions.

Upon its release, Miguel has committed to getting us copies forthwith. He has also committed to a continued dialogue and partnership going forward.

I believe that the meeting was fruitful and informative, both for us and for the CAO, and look forward to continued dialogue and partnering.

(Jay Handal serves on the Neighborhood Councils Budget Advisory Committee … formed at the NC Emergency Budget Meeting hosted by the LA Neighborhood Councils Coalition … and is Chair of the West LA Neighborhood Council.)