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Mayor’s Budget & Gang Plans Catch Some Ideas … and, Flack |
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Reaction
Edited by Sara Epstein
(Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has introduced his gang prevention plan and his 2008-09 City Budget over the last few days. Here’s a sampling of media reaction.)
The Daily Breeze
Taxing Knowledge
Staff Writer
Even in the face of a budget deficit of up to $500 million, members of the Los Angeles City Council are reluctant to part with their collective $12 million in discretionary funds. They say they need this money for projects that will benefit their constituents.
Well, we have a suggestion on how they can use just a tiny fraction of that, say $1.5 million, and do untold amounts of good in every district in the city:
Give it to the library.
That would just about cover the $1 fee for inter-office transfers that library officers want to start imposing to meet the city's demands for library cuts. In addition to the $1 fee to request an inter-offer transfer, the library is seeking a $25 fee for library cards for non-city residents and higher costs for archive photo duplicates and using library space for meetings.
The proposed library fees are just the latest in a wave of fee hikes for municipal services - water and power rates, trash fees, zoo admission and who knows what else - that the public already ostensibly pays for in taxes.
But rather than cutting from the real drain on the city's budget - salaries and perks for the highest-paid municipal work force in the country - city leaders squeeze the money out of the public in many different ways.
Who knows what fee hikes are still in store. Perhaps we will soon pay a fee every time we call 911 to cover the cost of the dispatchers, or an entry fee for City Hall to cover
the cost of security to search visitors and polish the floor dirtied by the shoes of the masses.
But this library fee is somehow worse because it distributes the burden unfairly. Besides being regressive, hurting those least able to afford the cost of buying books, it underscores a serious disparity of reading material in the city's libraries that was only acceptable because of the free and easy transfer between branches.
Do library officials plan to offset this by buying new books for each branch? Of course not. They have cut the budget for new books as well.
Library officials say that there are currently about 1.5 million inter-office transfers a year, and that will likely drop when people curb their requests rather than pay. So for perhaps a paltry $1 million in savings (which it could easily get by cutting back on the city cars for employees) the city might impose a new rule to discourage people from reading, educating themselves and expanding their minds.
Do the city's self-described progressive elected leaders want to go on record as against reading and books?
If not, all they have to do is come up with less than a hundred thousand a year from their fat discretionary funds. In fact, they could even cut $100,000 each from their annual salaries and still receive more pay than most of the Angelenos whom they think up these new fees for.
Now, there's a thought.
(Read more Daily Breeze news and views at: www.dailybreeze.com )
WitnessLA
LA & Gang Intervention: Finding What Works
By Celeste Fremon
When the LA Times snatched David Zahniser from the LA Weekly last summer, it was a very, very smart move. Dave Z is extremely intelligent, savvy and skeptical—particularly about City Hall.
So, after Antonio Villaraigosa delivered his State of the City speech last Monday, I figured I could afford to look on the bright side of AV’s gang plan, because I knew I could count David to mad dog it, so to speak.
Yesterday, his first round of analyses came out in an article that focuses on the main thing that could reduce Antonio’s gang strategy to rubble—-or more accurately to business as usual (and not in a good way).
In a word: Evaluations.
I spoke with David on Friday as he was still wrestling with where he wanted to go with his analysis of the gang plan. (That’s one of the excellent things about him. He’s not afraid to wrestle mightily until he finds the right thread to follow.)
Below I’ve excerpted a few relevant clips:
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a splash when he announced plans last week for ending L.A. Bridges, an anti-gang initiative under fire since the Riordan administration for failing to demonstrate clear results.
….in dropping the L.A. Bridges programs and shifting the money to his appointed “gang czar,” Villaraigosa put off yet again answering one key question: Are these programs, which last year received $13.2 million, successful in quelling violence and keeping kids out of gangs?
When Villaraigosa’s proposed budget is made public today, it is expected to offer an additional $7.2 million to gang prevention and intervention programs, allowing the same contractors who ran programs under L.A. Bridges the opportunity to apply for even more money.
Because the anti-gang efforts are being redesigned, a full evaluation of those programs won’t be practical until at least 2010, said Deputy Mayor Jeff Carr, the city’s gang czar.
What??? Didn’t the mayor promise he would hold all of his gang programs to a rigorous outcomes-based standard? And now many of the much criticized gang prevention and intervention programs operating under the umbrellas known as LA Bridges I & II, may have the chance to get funded all over again…..with no evaluations for another two years or more????
Among the problems with Bridges is that many City Council members have long had their pet programs within it, and have resisted seeing them too closely scrutinized.
Dave Z details a disheartening history of people who were told—explicitly or implicitly—that they couldn’t evaluate LA Bridges—ranging from former City Controller Rick Tuttle, to today’s Controller Laura Chick, to Connie Rice, to my pal Jorja Leap.
In 2000, the program came under fire from then-City Controller Rick Tuttle, who said it was so poorly run that it should be shut down. The council responded by denouncing Tuttle — and demanding that L.A. Bridges stay put.
“I knew it was a bad idea 10 years ago, the way Bridges was going,” Tuttle said last week, looking back on the fight.
City officials received an evaluation of L.A. Bridges’ intervention programs two years later, which found that one city contractor had taken two teens out of gangs. Meanwhile, gang-prevention contracts were so lax that workers could meet the city’s requirements by taking certain children to a baseball game and a picnic in a 12-month period, Carr said.
[SNIP]
“Los Angeles has historically awarded agencies multiple contracts year after year after year without holding them accountable by tying the dollars to proof that the desired results have been achieved,” [Chick] wrote in her report.
Here’s how Jorja lays it out:
Leap said she offered the Community Development Department a free review of L.A. Bridges four years ago and got nowhere. But she voiced hope that results would be measured this time around, using basic questions such as: Has a targeted child stayed in school? What is their attendance record? Were they placed on the state’s gang database?
If the city fails to evaluate its redesigned programs, support for such initiatives will evaporate, Leap added.
“This is it,” she said. “If they blow this, it’s over.”
Look: We want and need the mayor’s program to succeed. And we don’t expect overnight miracles. But we do expect some kind of reasonable accountability and measurability—and we’ll keep demanding it until we get it.
(Read more of Celeste Fremon at www.witnessla.com )
Daily News
Mayor’s budget cuts rankle city agencies
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Los Angeles' money crunch rippled across City Hall on Tuesday as officials began to flip through hundreds of pages of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's budget and found major cuts spread across city agencies.
To fill a $406 million shortfall while still hiring police and firefighters, Villaraigosa has proposed cutting analysts and clerical and maintenance workers. Warning of tough choices, he has slashed travel budgets, cut park rangers and plans to stop payment to cable access Channel 36.
And on Tuesday, some city leaders began to fight back.
The mayor's budget cut 60 clerks and legal secretaries in the office of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, whose aides warned that the cuts could hinder attorneys' ability to prosecute criminals.
Without support staffers, attorneys would be forced to do the paperwork themselves, said Chief Assistant Attorney Jeffrey B. Isaacs, and "it is likely that alleged criminals will be released from custody and legitimate prosecutions will be dismissed."
But the Mayor's Office dismissed those concerns, saying Villaraigosa maintained funding for all prosecutors, civil attorneys, paralegals, witness coordinators and hearing officers.
"The suggestion that modest reductions in overhead are a threat to public safety is complete and total hyperbole," said Matt Szabo, spokesman for the mayor.
"It's become an annual rite of spring for the city attorney to cry wolf over the budget."
For Angelenos, the first cuts that many could notice might be at local parks. The Recreation and Parks Department will cut 69 jobs, mostly among the gardeners and caretakers who maintain the city's parks.
The cuts mean crews will mow the grass at 390 parks once every three weeks instead of every 10 days. Some 372 city playgrounds will be cleaned once a day instead of twice. Some 176 recreation centers will not be swept regularly and park restrooms won't be tidied as often.
Also, there will be no supervision at six skate parks. And the department will have to cut half of the city's 42 park rangers.
Board of Recreation and Parks Commission President Barry Sanders said cutting maintenance was a difficult choice.
Roughly 8,000 of the department's 10,000 employees are part-time recreation supervisors and, he said, the department wouldn't get much cost savings cutting those jobs.
That left roughly 2,000 full-time employees, many of whom are maintenance workers.
"We have done our best in the budget process to minimize the impact of cuts both on employees and on services, but something has got to give when you have over $400 million shortfall," Sanders said.
"We're proud of our parks. They are wonderful parks, but they will show some signs of wear."
But some park advocates are worried that the maintenance delays will only worsen L.A.'s public spaces.
"Already Los Angeles is very shabby," said Diana Dixon-Davis, who lives in Chatsworth. "That's OK. Maybe they cut the grass less often or water less. But they've still got to clean those bathrooms. That's the type of thing that can't be left."
In another potentially controversial cut, Villaraigosa proposed stopping the annual $555,000 payment to cable access Channel 36, which broadcasts education programs.
Using fees paid by cable subscribers, the city is the channel's largest contributor.
"Without the city support, in all likelihood we would be forced to shut our doors," said Channel 36 General Manager Carla Carlini.
The city would still have Channel 35, or CityView, which airs city meetings.
Former Mayor James Hahn proposed reducing funding for Channel 36 but faced a public outcry from channel supporters and the City Council eventually restored funding.
But Villaraigosa's office said the city doesn't need to fund two separate stations.
Some city officials also raised concern about the mayor's proposal to save $81 million by changing the city's employee-pension contribution from a single up-front payment to quarterly payments.
The move helps balance the budget this year because it shifts the last $81 million payment into the next fiscal year.
The Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System board endorsed the plan earlier this month because it will still ensure that pensions are fully funded.
But by postponing payments, the city also is losing interest and will have to pay about $15 million more to make up the difference.
Councilman Greig Smith said he's concerned that the plan is too risky. "You're betting on the future. It's too big a gamble," he said.
(Read more Kerry Cavanaugh and Daily News views and news at: www.dailynews.com .)
LA Times
Villaraigosa's budget plan
More police, fewer city workers. L.A.'s mayor is being realistic with the city's new budget.
It could be a Richard Riordan budget or a James K. Hahn budget, cutting, as it does, departmental spending to account for falling revenues while directing a larger portion of funds toward a buildup of the Los Angeles Police Department. But it is an Antonio Villaraigosa budget. Not particularly imaginative or groundbreaking, given the energy with which the mayor swept into office three years ago. But competent and realistic about the choices available during times such as these.
The economic downturn leaves the city $406 million short and leaves the mayor with few choices. If the recession is a flood and City Hall an ark, Villaraigosa is cramming the boat with as many new police officers as it will hold and leaving behind some city employee positions and assorted bits of discretionary funds and programs. When the floodwaters recede, the city should be left with more cops, a leaner administration, some accounting gimmicks -- and "full cost recovery," a euphemism for higher fees for trash collection and other services.
All of that is fine. It has long been clear that Los Angeles needs more police officers, and Villaraigosa deserves more credit, not less, for using budget allocations to get the job done, rather than some of Riordan's and Hahn's more creative (if unsuccessful) methods, such as transferring money from the airport or seeking a sales tax hike. But it's a budget that any mayor in Los Angeles' recent past could comfortably put forward as his own. The city's elected leader operates within narrow confines. In flush times, Riordan could expand library hours, and in hard times, Villaraigosa can cut them, but for the most part, Los Angeles mayors get more done outside City Hall, like trying to fix education or exerting control over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
It is a rare move that actually makes City Hall serve people better. So scrapping the gang intervention program known as LA Bridges was an authentically bold move by Villaraigosa, as is replacing it with a program that -- we hope -- will be monitored and measured. A new model for evaluating anti-gang contractors is a relatively small step at this late point in the mayor's first term, but it could prove significant if it becomes a new template for doing business. The mayor should apply the same test to every city department and program.
"Until we get to a time when people really believe that we're providing the services they want and need in an efficient way, and we can get them to support government more ... this is what we're faced with," Villaraigosa said recently of his budget cuts. He got it right. Although adding more police officers is good, the costs are ongoing and trash fees can rise only so high -- and other programs can be cut only so much -- before residents cry foul. The mayor must demonstrate that each dollar is being put to better and more efficient use. Short of that, he can expect little more of his budgets than Riordan or Hahn were able to get out of theirs. (More opinions in the Times at: www.latimes.com ) _
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 34
Pub: Apr 25, 2008
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