Yes on 4 Charter Amendments

The Times endorses the following amendments to the Los Angeles City Charter on the Nov. 3 ballot, with a caveat.

The Los Angeles City Charter is a 700-page, detail-filled clunker. Under the simplified and more flexible charter Los Angeles deserves, these amendments would not require a public vote. Refined pension, retirement and Civil Service rules are important matters but they don’t necessarily belong in the charter, amendable only by voters. Two commissions are now wrestling with reform of the charter. Both want broad, clear rules for city governance, leaving the basics to the city’s administrative and government codes. These amendments, matters that currently have to be approved by voters, prove that reform is crucial.

Amendment FF: Right now, police officers and firefighters who become city employees through a merger or a contract for services are not given pension credit for prior years of work with other departments. Amendment FF would give them credit for prior experience.

FF would also pay survivorship benefits to the domestic partners of city firefighters and police officers. That’s already available to other city employees. Both changes would first require actuarial cost studies and a two-thirds vote by the City Council to go into effect.

Amendment GG: This amendment would allow the Los Angeles City Council to ask the Civil Service Commission to develop a screening process for public employees who are absorbed by the city. Now, such individuals automatically become Civil Service-protected city employees, without screening.

Amendment HH: The mayor and the City Council have the right to transfer or consolidate any of the duties or functions of all 44 city departments, bureaus and offices, save for the Airports, Harbor, Water and Power, Pensions and the City Employees Retirement System. This amendment would bring consistency by extending the powers of the mayor and the council to each of the aforementioned.

Amendment II: A few city employees who were hired by or merged into the Fire or Police departments between July 1, 1997, and Dec. 31, 1997, were stuck with a pension plan that required a full 20 years of service to earn a pension. They were denied access to a second retirement plan, available to other employees, in which they could receive a pension at age 50 with just 10 years of service. Amendment II would allow access to the second plan.