Villaraigosa criticized on budget

Los Angeles’ top policy analyst gave negative reviews Monday to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s plan to address the city’s budget crisis, warning that some major proposals would be unworkable or save far less than the mayor predicts.

In his 18-page report, Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller said the mayor’s request for voluntary five-day furloughs -- asking employees to stay home and give up their pay -- would not come close to saving the $20 million claimed by the mayor.

Miller also said many of the city-owned cars that Villaraigosa wants to sell were purchased with financing that requires them to be kept for a minimum of six years -- making them ineligible as a current cost-cutting option.

He suggested that officials instead save money by not hiring 45 police officers who are scheduled to expand the force next month.

The latter proposal immediately drew a veto threat from Villaraigosa, who called Miller’s recommendations “bureaucratic stalling tactics.”

As chief analyst, Miller works for the City Council.

“There is no question that the mayor and the council will have to pursue more aggressive cost-cutting measures,” Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo said.

“However, cutting cops while preserving perks is not an option,” Szabo added.

The council is scheduled to meet today in an attempt to reduce a $155-million shortfall without making cuts in such services as graffiti removal, library supplies and new left-turn signals.

With tax revenue stagnant at best, the city could see another $300 million shortfall by July 1, the start of a new fiscal year.

Faced with such dire numbers, Villaraigosa trumpeted a plan last month to reduce the budget shortfall by $35 million, largely by asking public employees to stay home and by selling city cars, cellphones and buildings, such as unused fire stations.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl quickly protested, saying that he had spent years trying to convert some of those surplus properties into affordable housing in his Westside district, where rents have skyrocketed.

In his report, Miller kept alive the notion of selling city buildings.

But he warned that doing so would only delay the city’s larger problem -- too many expenses with too little revenue.

By selling off its land, “the city would be using an asset that almost always appreciates in value to meet current expenditure problems, thereby compounding the city’s structural imbalance” in its budget, Miller wrote.

The city’s top legislative advisor also voiced strong doubts about Villaraigosa’s voluntary furlough suggestion, which was supposed to apply to any city worker who is not employed by the Police Department, Fire Department or Bureau of Sanitation.

So far, the response from employees has been weak.

In the month since Villaraigosa announced the furlough, 131 employees have taken part -- giving the mayor 133 days of unpaid time off.

To generate the $20 million expected by the mayor, an additional 7,000 employees would need to take 10 furlough days over the next four months -- double the amount of time initially sought by the mayor, the report states.

“As a voluntary program, this seems very unlikely to occur,” Miller wrote.

The budget analysis also found that the 236 cars Villaraigosa wants to sell would probably not generate $1.2 million, as predicted by the mayor.

Because the city bought the cars using “certificates of participation” -- a form of municipal debt -- only cars purchased before 2002 would be eligible.

Older cars would probably bring no more than $1,000 per vehicle, Miller wrote.

In an attempt to shield his plan for hiring 1,000 police officers, Villaraigosa has refused to allow any cuts to police recruitment.

But because the mayor is 45 police officers above his hiring goal for the year, Miller suggested that the council reduce the number of new recruits at the Police Academy by an equal amount next month.

That reduction would save $1 million this year and $5 million in the next fiscal year, allowing the council to spare library supplies and graffiti removal from certain cuts.

Still, an even more difficult problem will face the council in a few months.

“Simply meeting the police hiring plan for 2008-09 will require substantial, and perhaps unacceptable service reductions across the board in virtually every non-public safety department,” Miller wrote.

Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who sits on the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, agreed that she and her colleagues would need to look deeper into the budget to find savings.

But she had no intention of reducing the number of Police Academy recruits.

“The last place we should look is police hiring,” she said.

Szabo voiced dismay that other city officials had not heeded Villaraigosa’s call for “quick action” on his proposals to reduce the deficit.

And he accused Miller of failing to offer more budget-cutting alternatives.

“The report makes a lot of theoretical arguments as to why we can’t take action, as opposed to offering solutions for how we can,” he said.

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david.zahniser@latimes.com