Council OKs $4.1-Billion City Budget

With unusual speed and little disagreement, the Los Angeles City Council on Monday approved a $4.1-billion budget that expands library hours and adds funds for parks, fire suppression and neighborhood improvements exceeding even those proposed by Mayor Richard Riordan.

But in a last-minute surprise, lawmakers voted to boost their own office budgets by $1.5 million--about 10%--with nary a word about why the money is needed, where it would come from or how it might be spent.

“It’s totally disingenuous. It’s characteristic of the City Council, how they’re disjointed from what the public really wants,” said Riordan’s budget director, Chris O’Donnell. “It’s one thing if they were to add money to expand city services, but just to add staff for themselves? It’s entirely inconsistent with the mayor’s priorities.”

O’Donnell said the mayor would carefully review the motion, which was introduced by Council President John Ferraro and passed 14 to 1, with only retiring Councilman Marvin Braude dissenting. Riordan has 10 days to veto any line item before returning the financial blueprint to the council, which can override the mayor’s veto with a two-thirds vote.

During a six-hour session Monday, council members suggested adding funds for a variety of services, ranging from $40,000 for repairs to police officers’ bicycles to $3 million for a new department of neighborhoods and $11 million to hire more firefighters. Those items, however, were all sent to various committees, because officials said the city lacks the money to pay for them.

Not so, apparently, when it comes to $150,000 in equipment and $1,350,000 in salaries for lawmakers or their staffs.

“There supposedly wasn’t any money! Where’d they get it from?” asked Ken Buzzell, president of the firefighters union, upon learning of Ferraro’s motion. “We’re having to cut fire protection to pay for ambulances. . . . They may need more staffing, but it’s just hard to believe that when there’s money available, we’re going to cut people responding to emergencies. We’re talking about people’s lives. That ought to be first priority.”

Asked where the $1.5 million would come from, Ferraro said, “We’ll find it.” In the motion, he said, “There is a need to better address the general feeling of disenfranchisement by residents which has led to charter reform and secession movements.”

Some lawmakers said they would use the extra funds to hire additional staff, while others said they would hike their current employees’ salaries. Unlike the rest of the city bureaucracy, council members have wide discretion over how to spend their budgets and how much to pay workers.

Braude said the increase was unnecessary.

“The council has to be more accountable--this just makes it possible to evade accountability,” he said.

Some members said they need more money for constituent services because voters recently slashed their officeholder accounts--donations that can be spent at council members’ discretion--from $75,000 a year to $10,000 a year.

Craig Holman of the Center for Governmental Studies, the architect of that reform measure, said it is “more legitimate” for the council to use taxpayer funds than special interest contributions for their work, but questioned the need for a larger budget in the first place.

“The voters of Los Angeles have made up their minds that the City Council has enough money for their offices and their staffs,” Holman said, citing the April defeat of a council-sponsored measure that would have restored the $75,000 officeholder limit. “It sounds as if the City Council is just ignoring the will of the people. It’s not surprising that voter confidence in their public officials keeps on dropping.”

Although neither Riordan nor the council proposed any new taxes on individuals, the budget includes two controversial revenue-raisers that could trigger fee increases in a few years.

To pay for additional services, and to fill a $10-million gap created when voters in April rejected the extension of a business tax surcharge, the council voted to increase a fee paid by the city’s waste-water system and to tax the utilities that cut up public streets during their work.

The waste-water fee probably will lead to an increase in residents’ sewer service charge in 2000 rather than 2002, officials said. The street deterioration fee also could eventually effect taxpayers, since the city’s Department of Water and Power is municipally owned.

“You can dress this up, put ribbons on it, but the bottom line is, you’re taking sewer service money that people pay for the sewer system and using it for general city purposes--I question the legality of it,” said Joel Wachs, one of four lawmakers to vote against the waste-water fee.

Overall, the council made relatively few changes to the mayor’s budget. In contrast to last year, in which the budget caused rancorous debate that stretched over four days and ended in a divided vote, lawmakers this year approved the budget unanimously on the same day they began considering it.

Expanding on Riordan’s proposal, which outlined a broader vision of public safety that includes the Fire Department, nuisance abatement and gang prevention, the council passed a budget that emphasizes neighborhood services.

Among the council amendments:

* Add $1.2 million to keep the Central Library and eight regional branches open seven days a week, and seven community libraries open six days a week.

* Provide about $1 million to staff 23 new or expanded parks.

* Spend $1.1 million to staff the appointed panel rewriting the city’s charter.

* Add $500,000 to establish new Business Improvement Districts; $350,000 to turn nuisance alleys into public walkways; and $215,000 to provide closed-captioning on the city’s public-access channel.

“I think it went very smoothly,” Riordan said. “The council and myself had the same goals, and that’s why it went so well this year.”

The fighting, though, may be just around the corner. Reacting to news from Sacramento last week that local governments will soon receive more revenues because of a state budget windfall, council members introduced a host of motions suggesting how that money should be spent--$564,562 for 12 positions in the city attorney’s office, $600,000 for new farmers’ markets, an unspecified amount for lights in the Lemongrove neighborhood, and the $11 million for the Fire Department.

Nobody yet knows how much the city might get.

“It’s a bad precedent,” Braude said as the council sent the various proposals to various committees. “It’s just bad government to anticipate how you’re going to spend money you haven’t even got yet.”

Times staff writer Jim Newton contributed to this story.

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The New Budget

The Los Angeles City Council on Monday approved a $4.1-billion budget. Here are the highlights.

* Raises the council members office accounts by $1.5 million.

* Allocates $1.6 million to implement the Living Wage Ordinance

* Adds $1.2 million to keep the Central Library and eight regional branches open seven days a week, and seven community libraries open six days a week.

* Spends $1.1 million to staff the appointed panel rewriting the city’s charter.

* Provides about $1 million to staff 23 new or expanded parks

* Cuts $500,000 from the New Los Angeles Marketing Partnership and uses most of it for the Human Relations Commission.

* Adds $500,000 to establish new Business Improvement Districts.

* Allocates $500,000 to turn nuisance alleys into public walkways.

New Revenue Sources

* Increases the 2% fee now paid by the city’s waste-water system to 5%--which, in turn, will trigger a hike in sewer fees for taxpayers.

* Taxes utilities that cut up public streets during their work, which is projected to raise $10 million in seven months.

“Council offices are the primary contact/link for problems in the community, and there is a need to better address the general feeling of disenfranchisement by residents...”--Excerpt from motion to increase council members’ office accounts.