Los Angeles County has approved a budget that avoided deep cuts and layoffs after employees agreed to forgo their raises again. It is a welcome turn around for a county that has averaged substantial to departments in each of the last four years.
Much of the increase in spending came from state realignment services and funding. Other increases came in the form of budgeting for pay raises for in-home service providers. While the board can’t approve the raises themselves, they can provide the funding for those raises.
The budget, $24.53 billion, was up from an initial budget of $23 billion that was proposed by county CEO Bill Fujioka.
From the LA Daily News:
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a $24.53-billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, its first in four years without significant cuts in public services.
The budget calls for about $180 million more in spending compared with the current fiscal year and keeps departments’ funds intact – a reversal from the last four years when departments endured an average of 17 percent in cuts, and some more than 30 percent in cuts, totaling more than $360 million.
The budget does not include layoffs or furloughs for county employees, whose unions agreed again to forgo raises.
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