LA WATCHDOG-Just imagine the egg on the faces of the members of our City Council if they had placed the $4.5 billion Street Tax on the November ballot after Controller Ron Galperin released his “scathing” audit on the Bureau of Street Services, “LA Streets: Road to the Future.”
No doubt our representatives on the City Council and their cronies would have brushed off this report of massive mismanagement during the Villaraigosa reign as irrelevant, a complete fabrication, and ancient history. They would have also looked us straight in the eye when asking us to vote for this huge, but oh so necessary tax increase because there was no doubt that we could trust them to repair our streets and sidewalks and not divert any of the new found dough to pet projects and increases in salaries, pensions, and benefits.
Yeah, right. And I have bridge for sale.
Underlying the problems of the Bureau of Street Services is the City Council’s decision to short change our streets, sidewalks, alleys, and curbs so that it could fund ill-conceived increases in salaries, pensions, and benefits that eventually exceeded the growth in tax revenues by over $500 million a year. As a result, the budget of the Bureau of Street Services was decimated and it was forced to slash its work force by 45%, from 1,300 positions in 2007 to 700 positions in the current fiscal year.
The Bureau of Street Services has also been discredited by a recent expose by CBS2 Investigative Reporter David Goldstein that revealed street repair crews goofing off on company time and falsifying their work logs. And now there are rumors that the highly touted Neighborhood Blitz street crews are dogging it, working only a half a day according to a sharp eyed Neighborhood Council member in the Valley.
Furthermore, the 18 month process involving the $4.5 billion Street Tax is now compromised as the City Council, the City Administrative Officer, and the Chief Legislative Officer relied on the Bureau of Street Services and the Department of Public Works for its supporting information.
Even if the findings of the Controller’s report are only half right, it is still damning indictment of City Hall, the City Council, and the City’s misguided financial policies, its operating management, and its Stone Age management information systems.
Without doubt, the City will try to spin this management failure as an isolated case. But we know that is not true, but standard operating procedure as we have seen too many snafus with other departments, including, but not limited to, Planning, Transportation, Building and Safety, the Police and Fire Departments, and the Department of Water and Power.
Now is an opportune time for City Hall to embrace a real “Back to Basics” program where it reviews all the City’s operating departments with an emphasis on management, management information systems, work processes, the decision making process (read how to limit meddling from the fifteen Councilmembers), and efficiency.
As part of this review, the City would be prudent to consider the thoughts of Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, when he said, “It is not government’s obligation to provide services, but to see that they are provided.”
The City should also consider implementing “managed competition” where city departments and independent contractors compete to deliver quality service at competitive prices, a practice that has been very successful in a number of large cities with strong union representation in the public sector.
Needless to say, the concept of outsourcing will not be popular with the campaign funding leadership of the City’s public unions. But our Elected Elite need to understand that we are the customers and that the City works for us and not the other way around.
“LA Streets: The Road to the Future” and Controller Galperin will no doubt be subject to considerable scrutiny. And rightfully so. But after only a year in office, Galperin has earned our trust and respect.
That is more than can be said for the City Council.
(Jack Humphreville writes LA Watchdog for CityWatch. He is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee, The Ratepayer Advocate for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, and a Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate. Humphreville is the publisher of the Recycler Classifieds -- www.recycler.com. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Hear Jack every Tuesday morning at 6:20 on McIntyre in the Morning, KABC Radio 790.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 63
Pub: Aug 5, 2014