Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates provide guidance for L.A.’s deficit
The Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates delivered a letter to Los Angeles elected officials on Tuesday, March 25, urging them to avoid across-the-board cuts without considering their long-term impacts and offered recommendations to address a nearly $1 billion deficit at City Hall in the coming fiscal year.
Glenn Bailey and Jay Handal, co-chairs of the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates, delivered the group’s annual White Paper, a report on the city’s spending and services, to Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles City Council. They urged the city to evaluate the structure of city departments and to consolidate them if necessary, as well as to consider moving employees back into City Hall or offer work-from-home opportunities to reduce costs with leases.
“This is a pivotal moment in our city’s history,” the letter reads. “It is not a time for politics but for responsible financial stewardship. We must make tough but rational decisions.”
“This is also an opportunity to think about what kind of city we want in 10 years and structure the decisions accordingly,” the letter continued.
The budget advocates also noted that history has shown “indiscriminate reductions” — especially in revenue-generating departments — can result in unintended consequences. They warned against slashing critical administrative functions such as personnel, which could leave the city struggling to recover once economic conditions improve.
In the letter, the budget advocates provided the following recommendations:
— Update the four-year General Fund budget outlook to reflect anticipated raises for city employees;
— Develop a two-year budget;
— Conduct open and transparent labor negotiations that require significant outreach to Angelenos before, during and after the negotiations;
— Place a ballot measure that would prohibit the city from entering into any labor agreement that would create a current or future deficit, which in the short term could be implemented via an ordinance;
— Develop a long-term infrastructure plan;
— Create robust reserve fund that can only be used in declared emergencies and not to balance the budget (a current practice); and
— Establish an Office of Transparency and Accountability to oversee the city’s budget and finances in real time.
In its 116-page report, the budget advocates also provide a department-by-department list of potential cost-saving measures, which can be viewed at budgetadvocates.org/white-papers.
Under a system established in 1999, members of Neighborhood Councils are volunteers elected by residents of their respective communities. The councils advocate on issues such as homelessness, housing, land use and public safety.