Neighborhood Council Members Grill Greuel On Future Of System
TrackBacks (0)
Comments (1)
City Controller Wendy Greuel fielded questions from neighborhood council members
about the city budget and the council system as they face severe budget cuts. (Natalie Jarvey)
The Saturday meeting capped a weeklong battle between the 90-council system and the City Administrative Officer's office over budget cuts, which issued a mid-year financial status report calling for major across-the-board cuts to ease the city's growing deficit.
A recommendation from the CAO at Monday's City Council Budget and Finance Committee proposed a 50 percent cut to the funding of both the neighborhood councils and their oversight agency, the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.The recommendation also includes eliminating the petty cash system that councils use to fund small purchases and the rollover policy, which allows councils to "roll over" unused funds from year to year.
Greuel attended the first half of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition meeting to explain her reason for conducting an audit of the council system, a probe that found a lack of fiscal oversight from the councils' parent agency, DONE. The audit's findings sparked the CAO's suggestions for eliminating the primary means by which councils access funds.
This was the second audit of DONE--the first happened in 2006--but Greuel said her findings showed no sign of improvement over the last four years.
"Many of the [original] recommendations have never been implemented by DONE," she said. "We believe DONE is ill-equipped to resolve some of those issues."
But representatives from the various neighborhood councils seemed more concerned with Tuesday's upcoming City Council meeting and spared Greuel no mercy in demanding transparency in the city's budget.
In response to questions about her action to solve the budget crisis, Greuel assured the group that her department has taken a 10 percent cut along with other city departments and that she frequently reminds the mayor and City Council, "Every day they don't take action, four more people will have to be laid off."
But despite her openness, some members of the coalition said they thought her presentation went nowhere.
Stephen Box, organizer of BudgetLA, said he thought talks should have happened months ago, not days before the proposed cuts to the council system would appear before City Council.
"She wants to have a dialogue," he said. "But it's a bit late for us to be chatting."
Though Greuel promised to support an alternative to eliminating the petty cash system, one that would ensure each neighborhood council would always have access to $500 for small purchases, she also warned the coalition that it would have to take a cut to help curtail the city's budget deficit.
"Neighborhood councils are part of the fabric of the city. Their input is critically important," she told Neon Tommy after the meeting. "But the big challenge is we're all going to have to do more with less."
Her warning leads up to Tuesday's City Council meeting, in which the neighborhood councils will face discussion of cutting their funding in half and removing the integral systems that allow them to access their funds. These recommendations would reduce annual neighborhood council funding from $45,000 to $22,500 per council.
In an attempt to prevent the City Council from making any immediate decisions about DONE's funding, the LANCC voted Saturday to request that all budget items related to the Department be removed from the council's agenda until DONE can be reorganized. LANCC also plans to seek a meeting with the Education and Neighborhoods Committee to flesh out its proposal.
"We have a plan and an action," said Shawn Simons, president of the North Area Neighborhood Development Council. "We're making sure we have a stronger system."
Simons, who suggested the complete overhaul of DONE, said she wants to see the Department organized into three central committees -- public relations, government liaison and training -- run by members of the neighborhood councils themselves. She envisions each committee would have three full-time administrative assistants and 10 neighborhood council volunteers.
By her calculations, this reorganization would save $3.3 million from the $7.6 million budget in salaries, pensions, retirement and human recourses, and prevent further chipping away at the councils' funds.
Though the council coalition voted to present this plan to the City Council on Tuesday, several members voiced concerns over its structure, in particular the heavy reliance on volunteers.
"To believe in a massive outpouring of people just waiting to volunteer their time is just wishful thinking," said Jeffrey Jacobberger, chair of the Mid City West Neighborhood Council.
The restructuring of DONE is important, he said, but through a reallocation of their resources and not a complete overhaul of the system.
Another key component to Simons' plan is to outsource all budget operations to a non-profit, effectively relieving DONE's of its financial responsibilities.
Jack Humphreville, liaison for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, said he believes that a non-profit would be better equipped to handle DONE's budget and provide a higher degree of transparency and openness.
Some representatives argue that DONE and the neighborhood councils could make corrections internally before turning to an outside source for help.
"From the conversations I've had with people in the Department, a lot of the problem is caused by a lack of simple, clear, universal procedures," Jacobberger said. "If that doesn't resolve the problem, it could be that a non-profit could do it better."
Before Greuel left the meeting, she charged the neighborhood councils with redefining the role of DONE as they move to shape its future. Despite disagreements over how the Department should be restructured, the councils appeared to agree on what the agency's responsibility should be.
"DONE's job is a support position," said BudgetLA's Box. "The question becomes how do they support neighborhood councils?"
Jacobberger said the Department "should not be babysitters of neighborhood councils. They need to really be advocates of the communities that most need empowerment."
The neighborhood councils will be pushing the theme of self-advocacy at Tuesday's meeting.
"They don't know what we need," Simons said. "Only we know what we need."
Good story. I was there. These politicians make me sick.