The Times asked the two major candidates competing to succeed Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke about some key issues in the 2nd Supervisorial District, which stretches from Mar Vista through South Los Angeles and into Compton and Carson.
Today, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks and state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) offer their take on the county's financial picture.
This is the last in a series before Tuesday's election.
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County officials have proposed a $21.9-billion budget for the coming fiscal year that is 2.61% lower than the current budget but calls for no layoffs or major program cuts. If threatened reductions in state and federal funds require big reductions in county spending, where would you cut, and what services should get priority?
Parks: More often than not, the state and federal mandates are not fully funded. County programs ranging from substance abuse and crime prevention programs to Medi-Cal provider rates suffered a loss of $25.9 million when the governor and Legislature tried to balance the state's current-year deficit in February. The governor's proposal to balance next year's budget would reduce the county's funds by an additional $332 million.
At the federal level, the county faces a loss of $240 million in Medicaid revenue [and likely] substantial reductions to health, community development, justice, homeland security and social programs administered by the county.
Where a state or federal program requires a local funding match, reductions by the county should generally correspond to the state or federal program that is cut. Priority protection should be afforded those programs that are part of the basic safety net of services, such as child welfare services, food stamp administration, adult protective services, homeless services, mental health services and foster care.
The county itself is entering a precarious fiscal time. The county also has upward of $20 billion in unfunded liability obligations in pension and retiree healthcare costs.
