Villaraigosa plans new round of L.A. City Hall job cuts

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Los Angeles Times | Feb. 11, 2010 | 2:08 p.m.


Villaraigosa plans new round of L.A. City Hall job cuts


Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he is planning a second major wave of City Hall job cuts, moving to eliminate between 1,200 and 2,000 positions to get the struggling city through the remainder of the calendar year.


Appearing at a luncheon hosted by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Villaraigosa said the reductions would be sought for the fiscal year that starts July 1 -- and come on top of the 1,000 jobs that he targeted last week for elimination.


Villaraigosa said the cuts would lead, at a minimum, to reduced library hours and parks and recreation programs. And he dismissed suggestions that he lacks the legal authority to slash the size of the city's payroll.


More soon at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/



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[ilbegone]

I was reading that the City of LA will be bankrupt by the middle of next summer.

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Originally Posted by ilbegone

I was reading that the City of LA will be bankrupt by the middle of next summer.

Are you referring to this coming summer?

[ilbegone]

Not the one I was referring to, but an opinion essay in the LA Daily News

Bankruptcy ahead?

L.A. leaders, afraid of tough choices, are driving our city off a financial cliff

02/08/2010

AFTER a week of fruitless debate, the Los Angeles City Council takes up the budget debate again today. And if past discussions are any indication, very little will be decided by a council too afraid to make the hard - and politically unpopular - decisions.

Instead the city will slip one step closer to insolvency.

The city of Los Angeles is in immediate financial danger with a $212 million shortfall just for the last few months of this current fiscal year. Next fiscal year, which begins in July, the city is anticipating $400 million less in revenue than expenses.

These are dire straits, yet city leaders are still equivocating about permanently reducing the city's single largest cost: payroll. Last week, after hearing hours of heartfelt testimony from employees worried about losing their jobs, the council put off a vote on layoffs for at least 30 days.

Meanwhile, it came up with a convoluted plan of finding "savings" around City Hall, including canceling the once-a-month council meeting in Van Nuys City Hall. The plan seeks to pump out new revenue by collecting from people and companies that owe the city and levying new taxes on Angelenos, while also protecting general city workers from layoffs by transferring them into proprietary city agency jobs - the airport, the port and the water and power utility.

Really? This is how our representatives think they can solve the city's money problems?

"My goal is to find jobs for every one of our city employees," said Councilwoman Janice Hahn. She was dead serious - and unaware that her words illustrate our elected officials' grossly distorted priorities. Don't Hahn and her council cohorts have a responsibility to put the 4 million Angelenos before the 40,000 city employees?

The budget pussyfooting last week prompted Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa into action. Apparently exasperated with the embarrassing lack of leadership from the council, the mayor announced that he was bypassing the council and ordering 1,000 layoffs himself.

But, like so much of what comes from the Mayor's Office, it seems more bark than bite. Turns out it's unclear if the mayor has the authority to order layoffs; City Attorney Carmen Trutanich - who has said he's not letting any of his legions of lawyers get the boot - said he doesn't think so. Meanwhile, the real crux of the mayor's plan is the idea of leasing out the city's parking structures for a one-time boost of income. Not exactly awe-inspiring stuff.

If this is how Los Angeles' leaders think they can safely guide the city through the worst economy since the Great Depression, then Los Angeles is surely headed toward bankruptcy. Maybe that's not the worst that can happen. It's unlikely any outside parties could do worse managing the city's finances than those elected to do the job.

[ilbegone]

This is the opinion columnist's article I was thinking of. It uses the word "broke", rather than "bankrupt":

Take city's checkbook away from these guys

By Doug McIntyre

02/09/2010

I'm not a numbers guy. The wife pays all the bills and won't even let me take the checkbook out of the house. My financial ignorance is the cause of head shaking and occasional sighs of sad resignation. My wife is married to a financial dunce, and we both know it.

I feel better getting that off my chest.

So, if I can make this painful admission public, isn't it time Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came clean? Why can't Eric Garcetti and the rest of the Spring Street gang send a press release, or Facebook posting, even a tweet would do. It's time for everyone running the City of Los Angeles to own up to their stunning financial ignorance. The mayor and City Council have as much business carrying around L.A.'s ATM card as I have serving as Federal Reserve chairman. You can't solve a problem until you admit you have the problem.

And what a problem!

Here are the numbers as reported by The Wall Street Journal, people who actually understand finance: Los Angeles will go broke on July1. We're upside-down $200 million. Next year, that balloons to $500 million.

The city employee pension time bomb is nuclear: three years ago we forked over $200 million to pensions, which is poured into the stock market like most pension funds. However, unlike most funds, the taxpayers are on the hook to make up any losses. So, when the market crashed, where did that leave us? This year we're stuck with a staggering $560 million dollar tab. And next year? Cover the kids' eyes, you don't want them to see this, we'll owe the unions $980 million, which even I recognize is a very large number.

Garcetti says, "Bankruptcy isn't an option." He's right. It's a lock.

And who is it that made these outrageous deals with the unions?

While we sprint toward financial ruin, our so-called leaders circle the wagons around their turf with zero concern for the greater good. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich flipped over his Magic 8 Ball and proclaimed that according to the City Charter the mayor doesn't have the authority to fire any of his staff of 1,000, half of whom are lawyers. L.A.'s City Attorney's Office is the biggest on the planet, and Nuch aims to keep it that way.

Meanwhile, Bill Rosendahl is fighting to save the calligraphers so we can continue to crank out fancy scrolls commemorating Guatemalan Independence Day and other events vital to Los Angeles. And let's not forget the unanimous council vote showering raises to members of the DWP union.

These numbers have consequences. A brand-new United Way report confirms what some of us have been warning about for a decade - Los Angeles is a poverty magnet that repels the productive. Our sanctuary city policies draw in the neediest of the needy and our anti-business environment drives away the tax base that pays the bills.

And I'm the one who can't take the checkbook out of the house?

[Eagle1]

A not publicized fact is that mayor Villaraigosa gave Mexico 200 million of our dollars for a Green power project...geothermal power....with no electrical lines present to bring the power back into the USA.

In essence he threw our money away into the Mexican politically corrupt cesspool irresponsibly and criminally.

I got this info from IBEW local 18 union members.

So where is the investigation?