Critics on Council Call Riordan’s Budget a Reelection Ploy

In the televisions of their imaginations, members of the City Council can already see the campaign commercials:

“As mayor, Richard J. Riordan found a way to hire more cops, open new libraries, sweep more streets and trim more trees--all without raising taxes,” they fear the voice-over would intone. “But the City Council said ‘No’ to giving Angelenos a safer city that runs like a business.”

Riordan has floated a lofty image of his $4-billion budget as one that adds all the things residents care about and takes away nothing anyone would miss. Dream on, angry council members say, accusing the mayor of padding a comfy reelection platform for himself and leaving them with the ugly task of paying the piper.

“If we’re going to dance, we’ve got to dance together,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre, who chairs the influential budget committee and has long been Riordan’s closest council ally but this week offered unprecedented criticism.

“I understand reelections,” Alatorre said. “But there are other people up for reelection besides the mayor.”

Three years into his first term, Riordan faces his toughest budget battle yet, particularly in light of the council’s vote of no confidence last week in the mayoral aide who masterminded it.

The battle begins today, as a special council committee begins two weeks of marathon sessions on the budget, and 500 firefighters are expected to storm into City Hall protesting proposed cuts in department staffing. The full City Council has the power to approve, reject or amend any item in Riordan’s budget. If the mayor vetoes their changes, it would take a two-thirds vote--10 of the 15 council members--to override.

The mayor could not be reached for comment Friday. In interviews throughout last week, several of his aides acknowledged that this is his most ambitious budget, but insisted that it is a tenable plan that simply demands tough choices to meet the priorities of the mayor--and his constituents.

“A budget is a blueprint of priorities and includes in it a road map,” said Riordan chief of staff Robin Kramer. “In our view, the budget is a very credible road map.”

Critics say Riordan’s road map has potholes that could trap a truck.

What will happen to Riordan’s budget centerpiece--the $57-million expansion for police--if $100 million in dubious revenues falls through, council members want to know, and how can the city cut 1,070 jobs outside the LAPD without losing crucial services?

Is it fair to say there are no tax increases, they wonder, when some of the budget proposals would trigger fee hikes next year or soon after?

And where, they ask, does he get off undoing policies the council just finished passing?

“He really wants us to cut the positions and he wants us to raise the revenues or he wants us to cut his police plan so he can say, ‘I didn’t do any of this,’ ” said Jackie Goldberg, one of five council members on the special budget-review panel. “That’s not exactly what people expect of leadership.”

Council President John Ferraro, however, said that after 30 years at City Hall, he sees the accusations of politicking as just part of the process.

“Budgets are budgets. They come in all the time, and they never satisfy everybody,” Ferraro said. “These budgets are always a pain, [but] everything works out. Everybody has their own agenda. My agenda is to see if we can’t adopt a budget that everybody can live with.”

Facing a deficit of $240 million, the mayor’s budget team came up with a recipe that combines $114 million in savings with $126 million in new funds to make the sides balance.

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The budget includes $30 million from the airport and $20 million from the harbor, both quasi-independent government entities. The city’s ongoing attempts to get these funds are the subject of vigorous court fights, with airlines leading an aggressive campaign against the city. Even if the city wins, the victory--and the dollars it brings--could arrive long after the fiscal year.

And some of the police funding, about $13 million, relies on a federal grant that has not yet been approved.

“There are uncertainties and then there are uncertainties. . . . We need to get a lot more certainty in the budget before we can think it’s truly balanced,” cautioned council budget committee member Mike Feuer, noting that the planned reserve is $30 million. “I have no problem with putting these ideas on the table, but the responsible way is to find alternative revenue sources and put those on the table as well.”

Riordan Chief Operating Officer Michael F. Keeley--the architect of the budget who now sits at the center of a City Hall power struggle involving the council, the mayor and the city attorney--denied that there is any difference between the question marks in this year’s budget and any other.

“Year after year after year, uncertainties like that happen,” Keeley said. “The city has ways [of recovering]. There are good things that are unanticipated as well. Sometimes it balances out.”

Two other revenue sources are controversial because they move money among special funds and could trigger tax increases down the road.

Riordan suggests using $11 million in surplus from the storm-water abatement fund to sweep more streets and wants to collect $8 million by taxing the city’s waste-water system.

Some environmentalists oppose moving the storm-water money, and others question whether that fund could continue to be used to support street sweeping in future years. In any case, tapping the surplus means the tax that provides for required storm-water cleanup probably will rise sooner.

The waste-water situation is similar. By taxing a utility that is funded by residents’ payments, the mayor might indirectly cause a rise in utility rates, council members said.

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“Is this an artificial way to balance a budget that is intended to avoid raising fees in this fiscal year, only to intensify the pressure to raise them in a deferred way after the next election?” Feuer asked.

Mayoral budget director Christopher O’Donnell acknowledged that the storm-water and waste-water changes could quicken the path to higher fees.

“There’s no question that in the future we’re going to have to look at the revenue stream and see if it makes sense,” he said. “But there’s no reason for this money to sit there when there are ongoing needs for city services.”

Even if all the revenues were reliable, council members would still have plenty to debate in the thick books that comprise the budget.

Many say they resent Riordan making broad policy changes--such as reorganizing the Department of Public Works and collapsing the Department of Social Services into the Department of Aging--before the council has gotten to debate them. Others say the staff cuts are just too stiff.

“The budget overall is the city’s most important statement of policy,” responded O’Donnell when asked about this. “The bigger policy decision is whether to continue providing these services at all. We’re not making that decision, we’re just saying we can do it in a more effective way at a cheaper cost.”

But in some cases, Riordan’s budget is bolder, undoing steps the council just finished taking.

Last year, the council decided after lengthy debate to keep the West L.A. jail open; the new budget shuts it down. Riordan opposed a recent council ordinance that kept the funds from sales of properties in Venice for use in that neighborhood rather than citywide; his budget schedules for sale dozens of properties, most of them in Venice, and says each council district can keep 15% of the proceeds. Against the mayor’s will, the council last year decided to let city employees handle janitorial services at the Westchester Police Academy rather than contracting out; the new budget calls for privatization there.

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Alatorre accuses the mayor of trying to tiptoe his own policies in through the back door. “You push it now, because it’s all tied to balancing the budget,” he said, “and if you don’t get these policy reforms then you have to try and fill these gaps somewhere else. It’s smart, but you can see through it.”

O’Donnell denied that this is a sneak attack, explaining that the mayor is simply reviving these disputes in hopes that his view will prevail when the items are considered in context.

“When you’re making these ad hoc decisions during the year, you don’t realize what the ramifications are,” he said. “It’s only in the budget approval process that it’s all on the table.”

As the council and mayor continue their tug of war, union leaders and some general managers are also preparing their punches--focused mainly on the proposed staff cuts, which include at least 200 filled positions.

Hundreds of firefighters planned to protest in City Hall today that while Riordan brags about adding $5.5 million to their department’s budget, he is removing 166 positions from the rolls. (The mayor’s staff insists that Fire Chief Bill Bamattre has found ways to save money to prevent this from reducing service to residents, though the budget clearly eliminates at least two-dozen people who inspect fire hydrants or underground tanks and prepare for disasters).

The city engineer--whose department takes the biggest bruising in the budget--has written to each council member outlining projects in their districts, from sewers to parking structures, that he says would be in jeopardy if the cuts go through.

And Shirley Flucas, a 35-year veteran city employee, plans to put up “a hard fight” before losing her job regulating bingo and charities as head of Social Services.

In the mayor’s office, O’Donnell cautions against assuming that fewer dollars or fewer workers result in less service, repeating the Riordan mantra of productivity improvements. Kramer chalks these changes up to those “tough choices” her boss keeps talking about.

“Our wallet has shrunk,” Kramer said. “Just like in a family, when your wallet shrinks, you have to go about the way you do business in new ways.”