Under the threat of a credit rating downgrade, the Los Angeles City Council on Thursday instructed agency heads to eliminate 3,000 additional city jobs \u201cby any means necessary, including layoffs\u201d by July 1.<\/p>\n
The reduction \u2014 aimed in part a wresting further concessions from the city\u2019s unions \u2014 would be in addition to 1,000 job cuts already in the works. Those alone are expected to lead to 250 to 350 workers receiving pink slips, officials said. <\/p>\n
The council vote comes a day after Moody\u2019s Investment Services, one of the nation\u2019s top financial credit rating agencies, issued a negative outlook for Los Angeles because of the city\u2019s struggles with a $212-million deficit. It also comes a week after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for an additional 1,200 and 2,000 job cuts \u2014 or wage reductions for city workers \u2014 to help balance the city\u2019s books.<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s 9-3 decision came after members met in closed session for several hours with City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, who cautioned that tax revenues have continued to deteriorate. Unless the city finds more revenue or costs are reduced, the budget shortfall is expected to increase to $485 million in 2010-2011.<\/p>\n
Under the measure approved by the council, police officers and firefighters would not be exempt from possible job cuts. But a spokesman for the mayor said Villaraigosa would oppose cuts to police.<\/p>\n
Councilman Greig Smith urged members to take quick action and said Los Angeles cannot afford to engage in the financial paralysis that has consumed state government, which has battled deficits for years.
<\/br> <\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot walk away from this thinking that it\u2019s going to take care of itself,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s motion faced strong objections from several council members \u2014 including Richard Alarcon, Paul Koretz and Paul Krekorian. Koretz said the 4,000 number had been \u201cplucked out of the air\u201d with no analysis. \u201cI think it\u2019s a devastating mistake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Councilman Jose Huizar asked Santana, the city\u2019s top financial analyst, to provide the council with a list within 20 days of the 4,000 positions that would be eliminated. \u201cWe need this information before we just use a sledgehammer and draw the gauntlet and not even know what the impact on the city will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Villaraigosa praised the council\u2019s vote, and said immediate action was necessary to help the city avoid insolvency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey clearly got the message,\u201d said Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Szabo. \u201cThis is entirely consistent with what he\u2019s said for weeks. \u201cThe mayor\u2019s been saying we need to downsize city government and live within our means. The council took action today to achieve that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Victor Gordo, an attorney for the Coalitions of L.A. City Unions, said he was disappointed by the call for more job cuts before the council fully explored a variety of proposals to increase revenue and trim expenditures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to finding solutions that preserve city services and city jobs,\u201d said Gordo. The coalition represents an estimated 22,000 city workers.<\/p>\n
— Phil Willon and Maeve Reston at Los Angeles City Hall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Under the threat of a credit rating downgrade, the Los Angeles City Council on Thursday instructed agency heads to eliminate 3,000 additional city jobs \u201cby any means necessary, including layoffs\u201d by July 1. The reduction \u2014 aimed in part a wresting further concessions from the city\u2019s unions \u2014 would be in addition to 1,000 job […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}