‘Grains of Salt’ – To Take with the Mayor’s Budget Challenge

The Mayor’s Budget Challenge is the annual Budget Survey in which the Mayor presents his concerns and asks the General Public to respond to his specific questions.  Your responses help the Mayor select, modify and justify the items and issues which will appear on April 20^th in his Budget Proposal.  You can help the Mayor in his process by opening the survey website and clicking on “City of LA Budget Background.”

That was the first grain of salt… emphasis that this is the MAYOR’s Budget Challenge.  He may point to the fact that the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates (NCBAs) have provided input … which is true … but it still his survey.  The Mayor uses this for his own purposes.  He may be selective in giving weight to specific items or responses.  He may “spin” the responses to fit with his priorities.  This is his right as a Mayor.

I suggest that you click on “City of LA Budget Background” before you click on “Start Now!” so you can see four pages of basic budget data and learn more about the annual Budget Process.  Do so with your second grain of salt … because, if you read those four pages, you will be better prepared to respond to the issues and to put questions and comments in the Comment Boxes (“YOUR THOUGHTS”) scattered across the Survey pages.  You will also see the “TELL US” button which lets you send a message to a City (mayoral) based email ([email protected]) … I am waiting for their response.

Did you ever see a schizophrenic grain of salt?  A grain of salt with a split personality?  Well, you will see one when you come to the page titled, “Long-Term Initiatives to Reform City Government.”  On that page you can click on the “PROS & CONS” buttons to see arguments in favor and against each idea.  Remember the author of those arguments:  The Mayor and his staff.

Many other opportunities to learn more about Departments, Programs and Cost/Expense items from the side-panel buttons.  Here is your wisdom grain of salt.  The information is informative and useful … but, remember, it is always better to consider the source and to seek all points-of-view. 

The whole experience is displayed as an effort to decrease the $216 million Structural Deficit which expected to exist on July 1, 2013.  As you enter your responses, you can watch as this amount rises and falls.  One might hope that you can show the Mayor how to decrease or even completely eliminate the Structural Deficit.  If you do and the Mayor makes those ideas part of his Proposed Budget, everybody should be happy.  

Here is your complexity grain of salt.  Did you learn something from your experience?  Did you learn more about the City and its operations?  Do you feel that your input was important?  If you were able to decrease the Structural Deficit, do you expect the City to do so, too?  Do you expect that the City will use your suggestions or some others?  If you were NOT able to decrease the Structural Deficit, do you still expect the City to do so, anyway?  Is there any other way to decrease the Structural Deficit than to lay-off Employees and decrease services?  What services can we eliminate “comfortably.”  If  your recommendations actually would cost the City more money, where would that money come from? 

And … finally … a grain of sour salt.  The arguments you have just read are all critical of the Mayor’s Budget Challenge (Survey) even though it is cleverly designed, even though you might have learned more in the process and even though the Mayor may “spin” the data to his own administrative and political priorities.  Some have argued that it is not even worth taking the survey.  If you think your experience was worthwhile, spit out that grain of sour salt … right now.

(Daniel Wiseman is a long-time Neighborhood Council activist.  Currently, he is the Secretary of the LANCC Coalition and a NC Budget Advocate.  The views expressed here are his own and not that of any organized Neighborhood Council, committee or commission.)

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 11 Issue 17

Pub: Feb 26, 2013