Laying off L.A. workers is the wrong way to balance the budget

Four months ago, at a time when more than 20,000 Los Angeles families had lost their homes in the recession and the city’s unemployment rate was at 13.4%, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the appointment of investment guru Austin Beutner to a key post at City Hall. Among Beutner’s chief functions, the mayor said, was creating more jobs in the city.

But today, with unemployment at 12.3% and more than 30,000 homeowners facing foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac, the city is looking at laying off as many as 1,700 municipal workers and cutting the hours of many others.

There is no more important thing for our city to do right now than to keep its people, and the city, working. Laying off workers is bad for our neighborhoods, bad for local businesses and bad for the fragile housing market. And there is an alternative.

Last year, union workers in the city agreed to reorganize our workforce to lower the long-term cost of providing services. The unions agreed to trimming the city’s civilian workforce back to 1997 levels — a reduction of 3,000 employees — through early retirements and a hiring freeze. And civilian employees agreed to increase their pension contributions. These agreements will in the end save the city about one-quarter of a billion dollars a year over the next five years.

Now, because of the recession, the city again faces a serious revenue shortfall. Many pundits say city leaders need to “get real” and cut the size of the city workforce to address the “structural deficit” — the mismatch between revenues and the cost of providing service. But there are other ways to put the city back on firm financial footing.

Last month, city workers presented the city with a way of filling that budget gap without cutting staff and services. (You can see the full plan at https://www.keepLAstrong.com.) Parts of our plan have gotten a hearing, including proposals to cut back on expensive outsourcing. But on Monday, the City Council will vote on a budget proposal that proposes devastating staff cuts.

Let’s start with how much money needs to be found. It’s hard to get clear answers from the city about the size of the shortfall because every day seems to produce new numbers. But the city’s chief legislative analyst says that the proposed layoffs and reductions in hours would save the city about $121.8 million.

Here’s how the City Council could get that money without cutting gardeners, librarians, engineers and street-repair crews:

Ramp up revenue (for an additional $98.7 million). Ideas for new revenue include $11.7 million from hiring 50 additional traffic officers to enforce parking laws by writing citations, $11 million through increasing ambulance fees, $1.78 million from increased dog licensing and $500,000 from fees to be charged when the city responds to false burglar alarms.

The council should also move forward on a proposed ordinance to fine banks that don’t maintain foreclosed homes. With tens of thousands of foreclosures pending, the council could raise at least $5 million next year by requiring banks to register foreclosed homes and enforcing fines of up to $1,000 per day for blighted homes.

The City Council could also cut through red tape holding back the collection of $5 million in outstanding debt.

And finally, a plan to maximize parking meter revenue could generate $53 million, according to the city’s own figures. That money should be counted in the budget.

Make government more efficient and effective (for an additional $54.8 million). All of us must tighten our belts in this recession, including city contractors who collect hundreds of millions of dollars each year in taxpayer money. We are proposing 5% cuts to purchasing contracts, for a savings of $25 million. Seven separate city departments presently trim trees at homes and businesses at a cost of more than $10 million in outside contracts. Those contracts should be pruned too.

Los Angeles sometimes seems like a fractured metropolis, with the city-run Department of Water and Power ratcheting up rates while departments without the ability to raise fees — police, parks, libraries — take a beating. Our plan calls for transferring some appropriate workers to the Department of Water and Power, the airport and other departments that have open positions that are separately budgeted. This would save the city’s general fund $16.9 million.

City leaders should also expand their successful early retirement program and further streamline senior management to save an additional $2.9 million.

Avoid costly and unnecessary payments in the next fiscal year ($32.2 million). Last year, 22,000 workers agreed to defer pay raises to save $32.2 million this year. If the city lays off employees now to balance its budget, it will void this agreement and trigger the payment of as much as an additional $32.2 million in deferred raises. That money will be saved if there are no layoffs.

These ideas would more than make up for the $122 million the city says it would save with layoffs. L.A.’s workers are committed to doing our part to help the city get through tough times. But we believe this can be accomplished without the cuts to core services and hundreds of families’ livelihoods that the City Council is debating.

Bob Schoonover is president of SEIU Local 721 and a Los Angeles heavy-duty equipment mechanic. Alice Goff is president of AFSCME Local 3090 and a 911 operator.