LA WATCHDOG-Our Los Angeles Times has issued midterm letter grades for Controller Ron Galperin (B-) and City Attorney Mike Feuer (B+) and will be posting grades for City Council President Herb Wesson this Sunday and Mayor Eric Garcetti the following Sunday.
Our City is facing many difficult issues, ranging from a lagging economy, relatively high unemployment, the lack of good middle class jobs and affordable housing, an increasing gap between the haves and have-nots, a failed school system, an environment that is hostile to employers and investors, a bloated, inefficient City bureaucracy, and a City Hall that is beholden to real estate developers and the leaders of the City’s unions.
But these problems are trumped by the City’s precarious finances, where the budget is balanced by raiding the Reserve Fund (and funds destined to the Reserve Fund) for $150 million and the City’s future is being devoured by $25 to $30 billion of unfunded pension liabilities, deferred maintenance on streets, sidewalks, and rest of our failing infrastructure, and a modest level of long term debt.
While Galperin earned high honors (an A or A-) for his willingness to take on DWP Union Bo$$ d’Arcy (and the City Council) over the shenanigans associated with the Joint Safety and Training Institutes and his open data project, he was dinged, and rightfully so, by his failure to address the City’s financial future.
While The Times felt that his audits were too small to matter for a City with an $8.6 billion budget, together they painted a vivid picture of an inefficient City that was wasting our hard earned money and made for many interesting articles in The Times.
Galperin’s devastating audit of the Bureau of Street Services was probably the reason that the City decided not to place the $4.5 billion Street Tax on the November, 2014 ballot as he revealed a poorly managed enterprise that made the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight look like sharpshooters.
Galperin deserves at least a B, if not higher, letter grade. He has earned the respect of many hard working Angelenos because of his willingness to go against Union Bo$$ d’Arcy and expose money wasting inefficiencies.
While Feuer has done a yeoman’s job in cleaning up his office with its 850 employees and $190 million fully loaded budget, he has not addressed the City finances or its inefficiencies in any meaningful fashion. Nor has he called out any of the members of the City Council for inappropriate conduct involving sexual harassment or the use of their discretionary funds.
Overall, Feuer deserves an honors grade, a solid B, but certainly not higher than Galperin.
Mayor Eric Garcetti does not make the honor roll with his C letter grade, in large part because he has not been the leader the City must have to reform its finances. For example, this year’s balanced budget relies on raiding the Reserve Fund and not addressing the needs of our infrastructure. There is no operational or financial plan to repair and maintain our streets and sidewalks. There is no Five Year Financial Plan, a must for an enterprise with over 30,000 employees and revenues north of $8 billion.
On the positive side, he, along with the City Administrative Officer, Miguel Santana, have held firm in the negotiations with the unions representing the City’s civilian workers, insisting on modest pension reform and no increases in wages or benefits.
Garcetti is also dinged for his failure to endorse or implement the recommendations of the LA 2020 Commission involving the Office of Transparency and Accountability and the Commission on Retirement Security.
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But the real villain on burying these excellent recommendations is City Council President Herb Wesson, which, along with his failure to work with Garcetti to develop a realistic long term solution for our City’s finances, is why he receives the failing grade of D. However, this is understandable once you realize that Wesson is willing to sell us out to the campaign funding union leaders who will advance his political career and ambitions.
The Times deserves credit for stepping up to the plate and grading our City’s four top officials. We will see if our paper of record will call out Garcetti and Wesson for their unwillingness to develop long term solutions to the City’s finances.
(Jack Humphreville writes LA Watchdog for CityWatch. He is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee and a member of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council. Humphreville is the publisher of the Recycler Classifieds -- www.recycler.com. He can be reached at: [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 62
Pub: Jul 31, 2015
