Faced with a deficit of $63 million, the Council decided to tackle some of its lower-hanging fruit first. These cuts came from the Mayor’s office, the City Council, and other areas. They deferred answering questions about employee pay and contracts.
Instead, they’ve asked for more information. How much would more furlough time save the city? How much would LA benefit from canceling certain contracts?
The responsibility of finding those answers now falls to the city staff. They have their deadline: two weeks.
From the Los Angeles Daily News:
The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved $18.2 million in cuts and savings to the city budget, but it put off making decisions on the most controversial proposals, including furloughs and layoffs of city workers.
The cuts include $1 million from the budgets of the mayor and City Council, $1 million from the city attorney, $200,000 from the LAPD, $3 million from citywide salary savings and $12 million in savings from capital projects.
Also, the city Department of Transportation plans to look at speeding up the conversion of another 10,000 parking meters to take credit cards to collect higher fees. Revenue from credit card meters is up 50 percent, officials said.
Read the full article here.