Debate Over Finance Functions

Your readers were done a disservice by the May 14 editorial, “City Charter Sleight of Hand,” which urged the City Council to override the mayor’s veto of an ordinance that locks certain finance duties into the new Office of Administrative and Research Services instead of the new Finance Office, as proposed by the mayor. This legitimate and serious public policy debate has the majority of the City Council and the city administrative officer on one side and the mayor and the city controller on the other side. Clearly a majority of the City Council does not want this change. That is not the issue.

In fact, the two charter reform commissions disagreed on this matter. The elected commission wanted change and the appointed commission did not, and a compromise was struck--the unified charter would be silent on most financial functions and allow future mayors and councils to reorganize finance functions in nonelected offices by ordinance without going back to the voters. That is the debate that is underway, and both sides have credible arguments.

For your readers it would be useful for The Times to report, and your editorial to reflect, that the functions in question are “risk management” (an area needing a major overhaul in the city), debt issuance (not “debt projection” as your editorial erroneously said), long-term capital and financial planning (an area the city has far too long neglected), and revenue estimation. Of these, responsibility for the first three is completely unassigned in the new charter. With respect to the last, for which the Office of Administrative and Research Services does have some charter responsibility, the issue is whether an office that reports to the mayor can have any supplemental capacity. Independent analysis and reporting are not at issue in either of the two proposals that have been made.

If the charter were clear on the matter, there would be no need for an ordinance to lock in the status quo in the first place. Whether the veto is overridden or not, change is both necessary and coming. The failure of the charter reform process to resolve the matter does not end it.

RICK TUTTLE

L.A. City Controller