We Are Not Mushrooms: Learn More about LA’s Budget Mess Then … Do Something about It

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LA WATCHDOG--Our City’s budget and finances are a mess.  But City Hall is less than transparent, treating us like mushrooms, keeping us in the dark and dumping tons of ripe manure on our heads. 

But on Saturday, you will have the opportunity to learn more about the City’s budget and finances by attending one of the six Regional Budget Day meetings throughout the City that are being hosted by the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates.  These meetings begin at 9:30 in the morning and will last for about two to three hours.  Refreshments will be served.  See below for the location nearest you or click here. 

Importantly, the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates are interested in your ideas about how to make the City more efficient and transparent and to increase revenues. 

While the Advocates have produced many recommendations over the years that have saved the City considerable sums and increased revenues, City Hall has been resistant to implement common sense suggestions that would make the City’s finances and operations more transparent and curb its out of control spending. 

On October 4, 2106, the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates urged the City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti to implement the following four excellent budget related recommendations of the LA 2020 Commission.  

• Create an independent “Office of Transparency and Accountability” to analyze and report on the City’s budget, evaluate new legislation, examine existing issues and service standards, and increase accountability. 

• Adopt a “Truth in Budgeting” ordinance that requires the City develop a three-year budget and a three-year baseline budget with the goal to understand the longer-term consequences of its policies and legislation. (Council File 14-1184-S2)  

• Be honest about the cost of future promises by adopting a discount rate and pension earnings assumptions similar to those used by Warren Buffett.   

• Establish a “Commission for Retirement Security” to review the City's retirement obligations in order to promote an accurate understanding of the facts. 

For more information on this recommendation, see the October 6, 2016 CityWatch article, NC Budget Advocates Argue for Transparency Office and Truth in Budgeting Law. 

But the City Council and the Mayor have done nothing to implement these recommendations despite the fact that they were enthusiastically endorsed by City Council President Herb Wesson at a press conference on April 9, 2014.  Interestingly, Wesson was also the moving force behind the formation of the blue ribbon LA 2020 Commission headed by former Secretary of Commerce Mickey Kantor and Austin Beutner.  

The City’s budget is out of control. 

In January, the City Administrative Officer said that the City is looking at a potential budget deficit of $245 million this year (it was “balanced” on July 1, 2016) and that the Reserve Fund is in danger of dipping below mandated levels. As a result, the City’s credit rating is in jeopardy.  

The City is projecting a river of red ink over the next four years despite revenues being up $1 billion over the last four years and another $600 million over the next four years.  Our lunar cratered streets have continued to worsen, so much so that our gridlock is the worst in the developed world according to The New York Times. And our unfunded pension liability of more than $20 billion (according to Moody’s Investor Services) is a weapon of mass financial destruction aimed at the heart of all Angelenos.  

In March, the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates will issue its annual “White Paper” that will propose a “Back to Basics” Plan.  This will include a call for long range planning, a policy of not entering into budget busting labor contracts, a plan to repair and maintain our streets and the rest of our infrastructure, and the development of a business friendly environment which encourages employers to remain and invest in our City. 

The Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates look forward to your input.  After all, it is our City.  

See you on Saturday morning at 9:30 at the one of the following locations where coffee will be on the house.  

• ACTION INFO 

Regional Budget Day Locations 

Marvin Braude Center

6262 Van Nuys Boulevard

Van Nuys 91401

 

Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens

Griffith Park Drive

Los Angeles 90027

 

Glassell Park Community Center

3650 Verdugo Road

Glassell Park 90065

 

Ridley Thomas Constituent Center

8475 S. Vermont Avenue

Los Angeles

 

West LA Municipal Building

1645 Corinth Avenue

Los Angeles 90049

 

Croatian Cultural Center

510 W. 7th Street

San Pedro 90731

 

More info here.

 

 (Jack Humphreville writes LA Watchdog for CityWatch. He is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee and is the Budget and DWP representative for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council.  He is a Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate.  Jack is affiliated with Recycler Classifieds -- www.recycler.com.  He can be reached at:  [email protected].)

-cw