No on Proposition 5

Los Angeles City Proposition 5 on the April 11 ballot is an amendment to the charter that would change the way the city adopts salary ordinances for non-elected city employees.

The current process for setting salaries requires two decisions by the City Council. The first action, approving a salary agreement reached between the city and a union or bargaining group, is like most other decisions made by the council--only eight votes, a simple majority of that 15-member body, is needed for approval. The second action is a vote incorporating the pay rates included in the previously approved agreement into the city’s salary structure. Under current charter provisions, such pay ordinances need 10 votes, or support by two-thirds of the council, for approval.

Proposition 5 is designed to simplify this process by eliminating the two-step process. If it is approved by city voters, the charter would be amended so that one decision, by a simple majority of the council, would be enough to approve a salary ordinance based upon an agreement between the city and an employees’ bargaining group. Proponents of the measure, who include the heads of the city’s major employee unions, argue that Proposition 5 revises a process first written into the charter in 1925, and thus out of date.

But we are not convinced that a charter provision should be discarded simply because it is old. And there is no evidence that the current process for setting city pay, although perhaps unwieldy, has caused problems for the city. We see no point in fixing something that is not broken, and recommend a No vote.