LA WATCHDOG-Mickey Kantor (photo), Austin Beutner, and other members of the LA 2020 Commission will present their recommendations that were contained in the Commission’s April 9 report, A Time for Action, to the City Council on Tuesday morning, May 6. These measures are designed to “enhance transparency and accountability in City Hall, put the City on a path to fiscal stability, and renew job creation in Los Angeles.”
While many of these recommendations are no brainers, especially the ones involving the Office of Transparency and Accountability and Fiscal Stability, the real question is will our City Council implement any of these programs? Or will it be business as usual with budgets balanced by raiding the Reserve Fund that do not provide for the repair of our streets and sidewalks or properly fund its two pension plans that are $10 billion in the hole.
The Office of Transparency and Accountability is designed to be an independent, nonpartisan, apolitical entity with an experienced staff that has the capability to analyze the City’s budget, to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the City’s operations, and to review and critique the impact of any legislation and labor agreements on the City’s economy, its ability to create jobs, and its budget.
The LA 2020 Commission also supports a “Truth in Budgeting” ordinance which would require the City to develop a three year budget and a three year “baseline” budget. This will allow Angelenos to have a better understanding of the future impact of policies on the City’s finances and make it more difficult for City Hall to game the system and the voters.
The Commission also called for the establishment of a “Commission for Retirement Security” that will be charged with determining the facts regarding the City’s pension plans and to report within 120 days its findings and recommendations on how “to achieve equilibrium on retirement costs by 2020.”
Many have criticized “A Time for Action” for not offering more solutions to solve the City’s economic woes. While this may be true for the sake of argument, many of these modest recommendations are easy to understand and implement and are certainly better than nothing at all.
The implementation of these three common sense recommendations is also a test of the City Council’s support for Mayor Garcetti’s “Back to Basics” program.
It will also be the first step in showing the voters that City Hall is serious about addressing the sorry state of the City’s finances, including the so called “balanced” budgets, its structural deficits caused by runaway personnel expenditures, its underfunded pension plans, and its lunar cratered streets and broken sidewalks.
The implementation of these modest recommendations, coupled with a LIVE WITHIN ITS MEANS ballot measure, is necessary to begin the process of regaining the trust and confidence of the voters of Los Angeles. Otherwise, the likelihood of two-thirds of the voters approving the $4.5 billion Street Tax is slim, very slim.
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Here is a summary of the Recommendations of the LA 2020 Commission: (www.LA2020Reports.org)
I - Effective Government Starts with Transparency and Accountability
1. Create an independent “Office of Transparency and Accountability”
2. Create a truly independent oversight and rate-setting body for DWP
3. Hold municipal elections at the same time as state and federal elections
II. Fiscal Stability Starts with Truth in Budgeting
1. Adopt a “Truth in Budgeting” ordinance
2. Be honest about future promises
3. Establish a “Commission for Retirement Security” to review the City’s retirement obligations to order to promote an accurate understanding of the facts
III. Enabling Job Creation Through Innovative Economic Development
1. Collaborate as a region to bring in more jobs and investment, and tax revenue they generate
a. Combine the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
b. Establish a Regional Tourism Authority
2. Focus on economic clusters tp generate jobs of the future
a. Bioscience and Technology
b. Manufacturing
c. Environmental Regulation and Testing
3. Update Community Plans to enhance neighborhood input and establish a thoughtful growth strategy
(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 37
Pub: May 6, 2014