L.A. City budget moves still on hold by Council; new taxes an idea- a bad one.

The Council is still not able to come to a decision to fill the deficit in the budget. Over $330,000 a day- I don't recall the exact quote off-hand- is the amount that is added to the deficit EACH DAY that no action happens, according to Miguel Santana, Chief Administrative Officer ("CAO"). Putting that another way, from the same source, you would have to add another 4 positions to the lay off to cover the additonal shortfall.

From the L.A. Daily News, "In crisis, city hall talks new tax hikes - Council faces 1,500 layoffs if revenues aren't found to offset a more than $200 million deficit," By Rick Orlov, Staff Writer, Updated: 02/03/2010 09:02:48 PM PST
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14329429 Here's the idea and it's not a good one for taxpayers already living in a state with the highest taxes in the country:

As the City Council delayed a decision on making layoffs and eliminating city
departments to balance the deficit, some council members began talking Wednesday
about proposing new taxes to help ease the city's budget woes.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl suggested placing a parcel tax for an
undetermined amount on the November ballot to generate more revenue, in part to
help pay for the city's ballooning pension costs. Councilwoman Janice Hahn said
she wanted to consider submitting a variety of potential tax increases to
voters.

Bill Rosendahl is the same one who did not want to give up the Calligraphy people- and if that's something that stays in the budget in tough economic times, they you are in for problems in seeing what SHOULD go, if not that PURE LUXURY that serves to stroke people and businesses. Bill Rosendahl is one of the people behind kicking up the parking meter rates. Not anyone you would call "a friend of the public."

Aside from the mention of tax hikes, the story today adds that, "The council debated for six hours, with hundreds of city employees showing up to express their anger about potential layoffs." This is something of another luxury that happens only in this arena, the Los Angeles city government. It is something that most people in the private sector do not see in their jobs at all and it sounds pretty crazy when you study what's going on.

For the private sector, when the decision is made to do layoffs, usually there is not anything to do but pack up and leave. But take the City situation. It really amounts to having the employees blast the boss and then they expect to get some changing of minds as their reward. A real life, non-government job would have security called and out you go with that escort and it's over. And I don't think the city employees recognize what an oddity the system creates for them to do that. They do their work- of course they do, and was that supposed to be a unique thing for an employee? This is another place where we see reality drift off track again.

There was a photo in the L.A. Times today of a city worker wearing his bright safety vest and speaking during public comment. It said, as closely as I can remember, "What am I going to do for a job if I get laid off?" That happens to be everyone's thought in these times, and there is not going to be an easy answer.

But you know what? In city government, they flip flop so much in what the decision will finally be, that it often works. There is not that much resistance put up to the public pressure- and it's not the public, as here, it's employees. Anyone who gets a group together to fill up the seating in council chambers has a good chance of influencing outcomes. The Intimidation factor at work.

This is really why nothing happens. You might notice a theme, "We do our jobs" and "We work hard," but if you were the boss, wouldn't you say that that was the reason they got hired in the first place. That whole line of reaoning is lacking some real bsic logic, but you know with the layoff, it's financial and not performance that is mainly driving this.

And HERE, city council members have agreed to put off a decision for 30 days to decide what they will do. Meanwhile the meter is still running on mounting deficit until there's actioni actually happening.

But I will leave it at that and tell you later about the decision that WAS made: trash rate hikes for some seniors and disabled.

And how high will these proposed taxes be that will still probably be short when the time comes to find a figure?

I heard today that the revenues now compared to last year are at 97% of last year's and revenues have not been higher- the problem is in the way council and the mayor continue to spend and management continues to allow waste. There's lots of abuse in there, too, mostly known to insiders and not a whole lot of people willing to take responsibility to fix or report it.

So much needs to change here. If you agree with approving tax hikes, it's just making you an "enabler" to these spending junkies. Money is the fix for them. Elections are coming for the even-numbered council districts and new blood is called for since this crop of representatives is firmly set in their ways and it's not helping us; it's not getting the job done that they were hired to do.

And woe is us if ANY of them does becomes mayor- since being voters, we control that choice if there's enough to take that responsibility. It's bad enough now in the city with Tony V. , "the 11% Mayor"and you see he's not improved his habits one bit, even with increasing his staff to the 200 person range, they can't produce solutions. What about cutting THAT part of staffing? Those positions rate a pretty impressive pay check. Hmm?

L.A.F.D. overtime pay rises as Mayor spins budget

Mayor Tony gave his State of the City speech last week, telling us what we already knew- that the city was spending more money than it had. The Mayor continues to proclam the theme he's pushing, "Everyone has to share in the pain of the financial hardship." More symbolic than "painful," he's even pledging to cut an hour of his own pay. I dare say that his hour of lost pay will barely be noticed in his life style and pay rate- it's like swatting a fly at a picnic for him, but for others much lower on the pay scale, it's closer to bumping into a beehive with angry bees joining your picnic. But we can quibble later about the fallacies of his speech and actions. Meanwhile, the story of the L.A. Fire Department "overtime costs" continuing to rise has surfaced in numerous news outlets (but not much in the L.A. Times here) and there's been a lot of views on "why" this is happening, and "what" it means, and "what" cutting might do to hurt the public and "what's" responsible.

All well and good to find these things out, but as the "powers that be" start to look for solutions as to this aspect, you are witnessing a "circling of the wagons," a normal behavior when there's an agency, company or department of any group that comes under scrutiny of any sort, especially when it has to do with money operations.

The L.A. Daily News is on the topic, "L.A. Fire Department overtime pay going through the roof," By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer, April 19, 2009. [http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_12175241 link earlier omitted in error.]

The story observes that,

Los Angeles firefighters now average six times more overtime than their counterparts in Chicago, five times more than in Houston and two times more than
in San Diego - a city that has roughly the same ratio of firefighters-to-residents as Los Angeles.

Some of the information is an eye-opener, to say the least.

The Daily News analysis found:

--56 firefighters earned at least $100,000 in overtime on top of their annual salaries last year, up from three in 1999 and 10 in 2005.

--The average Los Angeles firefighter earned about $36,500 in overtime in 2008, compared with $29,000 in 1999. Their average salary and overtime compensation totaled $117,000.

--The department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006. His three-year overtime total was nearly double his base salary for that period.

The story also includes views on why the overtime situation is justified and may still be cheaper than hiring more persons to fill the need. It's something that's been going on for years and growing. You have to wonder why some of the solutions were not considered earlier. It has to come to reaching this "city budget crisis" for any examination of internal operations to come to the light of day.

You might check the Daily News story and form your own impressions. The story is being treated in assorted ways by different people and groups. The KTLA TV news story, Report: Los Angeles Fire Department Racking Up Overtime states "The Los Angeles Fire Department is apparently under fire for racking up the overtime." While it tries to handle this topic delicately, adding the word, "apparently," does appear to be hedging the bet needlessly. Firefighters and a fire department are essential components of city services. But that still creates no entitlement to "carte blanche" terms as an expense. No one wants to see the loss of city services or the unnecessary spending of tax dollars. The city needs to cut expenses or collect more money overall and this area looks like it could use some changes.

I heard one question on the radio about whether as some calculate, that a pension is calculated with the highest yearly (or series of years) income used as the base to set the pension value. So "spiking" the pay with lots of overtime has the real benefit to come up for an even longer lasting benefit. That is just someone's speculation and there's not anything to say if that would apply to city service in any way, but if it does, there's another bit of motivation for an employee to keep up earning the overtime hours.

Neither losing services or paying more taxes is a choice that city residents will enjoy. But that's the way that the Mayor is begining to build his case. I think that there's a need to get into this topic before the city goes entirely down the drain. (I am still trying to see how the Mayor's "Summer Midnight Basketball" pet program fits in as an additional expense to a service-slashing endangered parks and recreation dept.)

If we think this is all part of operating a big city and we have to just suck it up, then I ask, "Why don't other big cities have the same catastrophic sized budget conditions?" Management would be the word you might look for, good management, actually. We don't have that. Look for more taxes- sales taxes- to be the way out for those who see taxes rising to meet expenses instead of better management. Check how much is going to sales taxes NOW and think about another 1% here and .5% there. I say we need to check "expenses" and if current management (Mayor and City Council) can't do it, then we need new attitudes and new people without that DNA spending gene so prominently operative to be our leaders.

On top of all this financial chaos, Mayor Villaraigosa continues to have his eye on the prize, in this case, it's the Governor's office. Villaraigosa's speech says "share the pain" and still no layoffs in city service- he does not want to have anyone angry at him, not city employees or trades unions or anyone who could possibly be a vote. There's some real wheeling and dealing going on by Tony to try to keep his chance at being Governor of California within his grasp, so keep that in mind as you read more on the city scene. "It's not all as it appears to be," is the punchline to a colorful story involving cellmates in prison, told to me years ago in a different setting to illustrate the point. These are words to keep in mind to apply regularly in connection to current events.