Mayor’s budget calls for 767 L.A. job cuts

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Friday that he would cut 767 jobs this year to eliminate a $406-million budget shortfall as the city tries to weather a prolonged economic downturn.

With revenue from sales and property taxes lagging, Villaraigosa promised that his proposed budget would include $1.50 in cuts for every dollar in new fees handed down to taxpayers and consumers of city services.

Villaraigosa refused to reveal what services would be scaled back, saying only that there would be “deep and painful cuts.” He also sent strong signals that he would pursue a range of fee hikes, including an increase in the city’s trash collection rate.

The mayor has already asked the city’s budget analysts to look at increasing the trash fee from the current rate of $26 to as much as $38. “We’re looking at the biggest budget deficit in L.A. history, so we’re going to have to make the tough choices,” he said.

Villaraigosa offered his budget teaser three days before his scheduled State of the City speech, an address that is expected to focus heavily on the city’s fight against gangs. One week after that address, the mayor plans to release his budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which must be approved by the City Council before going into effect July 1.

By cutting 767 positions, Villaraigosa would bring down the size of the city’s budgeted workforce by roughly 2% -- just above the level when he took office. Although some of those positions are vacant, Villaraigosa predicted that some employees would be laid off.

The city has 37,173 positions budgeted for the current year. Villaraigosa said reductions would not apply to police, firefighters or sanitation drivers.

Although Villaraigosa warned of painful decisions, a representative of six city employee unions said she did not see dire cuts as a foregone conclusion. Barbara Maynard, spokeswoman for the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, said her group was working with Villaraigosa to find other budget-cutting solutions, such as better collection of parking-ticket fines and reductions in workers’ compensation costs.

“We think it’s premature to actually start talking about who is going to be unemployed,” Maynard said. “We really are trying our very best, collectively and individually, to try to avoid impacting services and families.”

The proposal for cuts and fee increases comes four months after Villaraigosa and the coalition signed off on a package of pay raises for roughly 22,000 city workers. The package will cost the city $255 million over five years.

The plan also coincides with Villaraigosa’s continuing effort to hire 1,000 new officers for the Los Angeles Police Department, which hit the halfway mark earlier this year.

To keep that program intact, the city’s elected officials have been trying to determine which fees they can raise -- and services they can reduce -- without incurring the wrath of constituents.

“We have to get back to the basics, to the meat and potatoes of what a city is supposed to do with taxpayers’ dollars -- public safety, street repair, sidewalk repair, traffic mitigation,” said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who sits on the budget committee.

Still, things that were once viewed as basic services are now in doubt. Council members have begun looking at shifting the cost of sidewalk repairs from city government to property owners.

The council plans to devote an entire meeting to proposals for increasing fees and other forms of revenue.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn proposed a new oil-extraction fee. Councilman Bill Rosendahl has proposed a fourfold increase in parking meter fees. And the council has increased entrance fees to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Those fees will come on top of a package of water and power rate hikes approved Wednesday by the council.

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david.zahniser@latimes.com