Council Paves Way for Vote on $3.25-Billion L.A. Budget

The Los Angeles City Council on Thursday completed debate on Mayor Tom Bradley’s $3.25-billion budget for the coming fiscal year, clearing the way for a vote Tuesday.

It is the largest spending program in the city’s history. It contains a record reserve fund estimated at almost $40 million.

When the budget passes the council, as expected on Tuesday, it will go to Bradley, who can veto any of the $25 million in cuts and $37 million in additions that the council made to his initial proposal. It takes a two-thirds vote of the 15-member council to overturn a mayor’s veto.

In its reworking of the mayor’s budget proposal, the council retained Bradley’s popular plan to add 514 police officers and the $2.2-million Clean and Green youth employment program. But the council killed the mayor’s requests for a trash pickup fee, eliminated his $7-million L.A. Pride Lines transit program and cut out 80 proposed managerial staff positions--including five proposed positions on the mayor’s own staff.

“It’s a fat budget” in terms of staffing, said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Finance Committee who acts as the council’s quarterback on the budget. “It’s not as fat as it was four weeks ago” when proposed by the mayor, “but it’s still top heavy.”

Among the biggest additions by the council were $27 million to fund the mayor’s proposed citywide garbage recycling program, $3.2 million to promote 125 police officers to narcotics detectives, $1 million in funding for a yet-to-be-established Department of Environmental Affairs, $1 million for new library books, $800,000 for new park rangers and $400,000 for expanded city swimming pool hours.

A spokesman for Bradley said the mayor would have no comment on the budget until the final document is on his desk and he has had an opportunity to study it.

Vetoes Likely

“We’ve done our jobs, now he has to do his,” said Yaroslavsky, adding that it is likely the mayor will veto some items, as he has done virtually every year. But some of the vetoes will not survive an override vote, Yaroslavsky said. The Pride Lines transit program, which would spend $3.5 million to hire area youths to clean RTD buses and recommission 25 aging buses, “is not going anywhere,” said Yaroslavsky, who led the council fight against the program.

Council President John Ferraro and Yaroslavsky agreed that this year’s budget was one of the easier ones in recent years, in part because of a 10%, or $300 million, rise in anticipated city revenue.

$6.2 Million More

This week, the city received revised figures from the county tax assessor indicating that property tax revenues would be $6.2 million higher than expected.

On the strength of those additional funds, the reserve funds surpassed the targeted $30 million.

City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie said he believed that to be the largest reserve in the city’s history.

“It’s a good thing,” said Yaroslavsky, “we’re going to need it.” The councilman said the city has several large contingencies that it may have to face in the coming fiscal year, including several lawsuits and possible changes in costs of the recycling program.