For the first time in recent memory, Los Angeles city officials on Tuesday recommended laying off employees as part of a plan to prevent reductions in police and fire service proposed last month by Mayor Tom Bradley.
Responding to a projected $71-million budget deficit, the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee approved a plan that would cut 84 building inspectors and planners and also increase taxes on businesses that sell their products outside the state.
The proposals, to be taken up by the full City Council next week, are expected to encounter vehement opposition--the layoffs from city unions, and the tax increase from a business community that claims it is already overburdened by taxes and regulation.
But Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who made the proposals, said they are preferable to continuing to allow the Police and Fire departments to shrink under a more than 2-year-old hiring freeze.
"We are not going to allow any cuts in the Police Department," Yaroslavsky said. "We are not going to allow any cuts in the Fire Department, especially when we are subsidizing other programs that are not needed."
Yaroslavsky said planners and building inspectors have been underworked because of the slump in the building industry. The 84 employees proposed for layoff--61 in the Building and Safety Department and 23 in the Planning Department--must be paid for from the city's general fund because fees from builders have dropped sharply, Yaroslavsky said.
The Yaroslavsky plan comes in response to Bradley's proposal for closing a $71-million deficit caused by flagging tax receipts and a decrease in state funding to the city.
The mayor called for continuing the hiring freeze in all departments, meaning that attrition would claim another 129 officers and 48 civilian Police Department employees from a force of 7,800 officers by June, and the Fire Department would drop 56 firefighters and be forced to cut staffing in half at five stations.
The bad budget news comes less than six months after the city government struggled to cut $183 million from its programs by freezing spending, taking funds from the semi-independent Community Redevelopment Agency and deferring most equipment purchases.
Next week's council debate will feature at least one more contentious issue--Bradley's call for borrowing $20 million from a police and fire pension fund to balance the budget.
