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Alliance
of Neighborhood Councils
Report - 01/17/04
EDITOR'S NOTE: These reports are posts are from the "LA
Neighborhood Council Issues" group, a Yahoo e-group. To read
about and join the LANCissues group click here: LANCissues
by Stephen C. Twining
1/17/04
City Comptroller Laura Chick's remarks
City Comptroller Laura Chick spoke before the Alliance of N.C.'s
this morning (about 40 [neighborhood councils] were represented).
She claims there is a "changing culture in city hall. Her functions
are to be the chief auditor and accountant for the City of Los Angeles.
She writes checks as an accountant. She is our "taxpayer watchdog
or 'watchchick'". She has conducted 61 audits in her 900 days in
the position. She wants to "open up city finances, ask questions
and find out how we are doing. She is responsible for auditing the
"proprietary" accounts of the city meaning the airport, harbor and
dwp. In her audit of the DWP particularly the "green power" account
of a million dollars. She found that there had been lots of VIP
parties and not much public benefit.
At the port which is a billion dollar agency, there was no explanation
on how the shipping leases were awarded.They couldn't explain how
the leases were granted with a lack of written policy. At the airport
hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts are awarded. There
was no documentation on the big ones. The "pay to play" system was
evidently in charge. She has reported what she found to the Ethics
Dept., the US Attorneys office and the Inspector General of the
Transportation Dept. "How do we drain this swamp?"
Each proprietary dept. is supposed to have an "Industrial Survey"
indicating how bids are obtained, scope of hiring etc. The Million
Dollar survey recently undertaken on the DWP was buried under dust
and had not been presented to the Mayor, City Council or the City
Council Committee. A copy of this survey has now been delivered
to Councilperson Chick who is in charge of the Government Efficiency
Committee.
Comptroller Chick is asking for a volunteer from each N.C. to be
on a committee to review the audits performed or at least the principal
findings. There has to be a change in attitude. Ms. Chick would
bar commissioners being able to raise money for any politician,
proposition etc. She also recommends that the city begin "direct
payments" to all City subcontractors. She wants to "clean clean
clean" this drain.
Comment
from Councilman Garcetti on the LANCissues Yahoo e-group:
Steven:
You have hit the nail on the head. And Controller Chick is doing
a great job of pointing out excesses in the system, along with
Wendy Greuel and Cindy Miscikowski. I hope that their proposal,
which I strongly support, passes.
However, to really root out the power of "pay-to-play", I believe
we must set up a system of full public financing of elections
in the city of Los Angeles. A number of states, from Arizona
(more conservative) to Vermont (more liberal) have set up a
system where candidates have to prove their viability not by
the number of rich friends, but by the number of supporters
they have (measured by signatures or a collection of small donations--say
$5-$10). Once they reach a threshold, they are then given enough
money to run a viable campaign.
This would level the playing field for new candidates and would
allow folks in less-wealthy districts to get donations from
within their own district to qualify. And a $5 check in the
public funding system would become as powerful as a $500 check
in a non-publicly funded system.
Valley VOTE has made this one of their legislative priorities,
and I have been trying to raise the issue in council whenever
we discuss ethics reform. The biggest impediment is our budget
crisis, as a system like this costs money--probably about $5
million a year for City Council races and an equal amount for
citywide races--in order to build up the funds to run this kind
of program.
I hope that in the next few years, the city will be in the position
to enact a system of full public financing. We could take it
to the voters as a citywide initiative, but no matter how this
moves forward, I think that neighborhood councils can play a
very important leadership role in moving this forward at the
appropriate time. In the meantime, if you are interested in
a system of public financing in California, you can visit the
Clean Money Campaign (full disclosure: I serve on the advisory
board) at http://www.caclean.org/. We are trying to get a statewide
initiative to enact a similar system throughout California (but
this would not apply to local elections).
Thanks to all of LANCissues for your focus on this badly-needed
reform.
All the best,
Eric Garcetti |
Deputy Mayor Doane Liu's remarks
At today's Alliance of N.C.'s meeting Deputy Mayor Doane Liu spoke
about the forthcoming budgetary situation for the City of Los Angeles.
He claims the city will lose $45 Million as a result of state actions
and an additional $98Million from the "triple flip" of Governor
Schwarzenegger re; the car tax increase. In addition the city faces
$200Million of obiligitary funding increases (Cost of Living adjustment
$50 Million, Pensions Contribution Requirement of $125 Million,
Workmen's Compensation increase of $23 Million and Healthcare Increase
of $32 Million) The mayoral administration is in the process of
adopting "priority based budgeting" which will list the 1,000 city
services performed and will adopt the most critical until the indicated
revenue runs out. Each City Department has been asked to provide
a price list of each of the 1,000 services provided. The process
includes the Mayor's budget priorities, Advisory Groups such as
the NC Budget process, Buying Outcome groups and Revenue groups.
Last year the budget was approximately $5.1 Billion and this year
they are anticipating $5.0 Billion. The mayor has recommended non-tax
measures to increase revenues. The main goals of the Mayor's budget
are as follows: 1) To be the safest big city in America. 2)To have
good liveable neighborhoods. 3) To have government working better
and costing less. 4) Traffic and Mobility. 5) To provide affordable
housing and 6) To have jobs and a workforce in a favorable business
climate.
Councilperson Wendy Gruel's remarks
Councilperson Wendy Gruel spoke today at the Alliance of N.C. meeting
1/17/04. She is head of the Governmental Efficiency etc. Committee
of the Los Angeles City Council which she chose to be on because
it interacts with all of the Los Angeles City Departments. She gave
some examples of how the city can save money. One the city has 144
toll free telephone numbers which can be replaced using the 311
number at a cost savings of approximately $1/2 Million. The city
to date has had a 40% collection rate on "Ambulance billing." Currently
the fire department members who respond to ambulance calls write
down on note pads the billing name and address which is snt to 40
clerk typists in the fire department. Many of these have wrong addresses.
She recommends hand held palm pilots or their equivalent like Fed-Ex
or UPA use. Also both the Police Department and the Personnel Department
of the City of Los Angeles do background checks on prospective applicants.
The police department uses sworn officers and the personnel department
uses primarily retired police officers to perform the same function.
The current system has the General Managers doing self-auditing
which is redundant to say the least. She infers that outside auditing
by an independent auditor would make much more sense. She made reference
to AB 63 the business tax ordinance in conjunction with the state
of California providing client information. It is based on gross
revenues. After its initiation, the prime business people who fessed
up to owing taxes were maids and gardeners which was not the intent
of the law change. The business tax brings in $378 million a year
to the general fund.
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LANCissues
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