Villaraigosa addresses city's shortfall
Analysts attributed the $155-million deficit mostly to the flagging economy. Villaraigosa proposes stark plans.
Faced with a budget shortfall that has doubled in three months, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Monday for paring city spending by suspending most hiring, asking thousands of workers to take unpaid furloughs and selling vacant fire stations.
Budget analysts attributed the $155-million deficit mostly to the flagging economy, saying larger than expected decreases in sales taxes, real estate transfer taxes, fees and state reimbursements have left the city $69 million short of anticipated revenues.
Fuel costs and police overtime have driven up expenses more than anticipated.
Despite the troubling financial situation, Villaraigosa pledged to continue his 1,000-officer expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department -- an effort he called key to attracting business, even if it means cutting other services such as street paving and graffiti removal.
"My priority has got to be public safety," Villaraigosa said at a City Hall news conference. "Keeping the city safe is the answer to how we support revenues."
Villaraigosa outlined $35 million in cuts as he made a pitch for Proposition S, a telephone users utility tax that is expected to generate $243 million annually. Voters will decide the issue next Tuesday, and the mayor has been arguing that the city will have to slash public safety services if the measure fails.
The proposed cuts come a month after Villaraigosa and the City Council signed off on a five-year package of employee raises that are projected to cost $255 million by 2012.
Villaraigosa and other city leaders are bracing for a gap of at least $300 million, and perhaps as much as $500 million, in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
That could create the city's largest budget hole in nearly three decades, officials said.
The mayor's focus on his LAPD hiring promise drew criticism from a member of the City Council's budget and finance committee.
Councilman Greig Smith, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley, argued that all city departments should share in this year's budgetary pain.
"Hiring police officers now is an issue that has to be discussed," said Smith, one of the council's most fiscally conservative members and a reserve LAPD officer. "If you are saying don't touch police, don't touch fire, that means you're going to . . . close libraries, stop paving streets."
