Showing posts with label Recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recession. Show all posts

April 19, 2010

L.A. County budget shortfall at more that $500 million

Read the headline below closely..."layoffs POSSIBLE". What private employer in the US would have a $500 million loss and not lay off people immediately? I guess the County administrators flunked math as the total below is like 168 million. So what about the rest? Also note that 1/4 of the total is cuts from LASD, where we all know most of the cost and the fat is located. How does eliminating a vacant deputy postion save us money? Thats fake. Also how much overtime is being cut. Very "broad" picture being painted below. We need to see the details in the story below as we call know the deveil is in the details. Also when these cuts actually happen lets us know. We all hear about "proposed" cuts "in the news" that never really happen. Also lets take a  look at govt. employye job losses vs private sector job losses. There is no comparison. It must be like 700 private sector job losses for every one public secor job loss. Ill bet not one person that was a full time govt. employee in CA before 2004 has lost their job due to budget cuts. I would love to see just one real job cut, that actually really ocurred and by which we stopped paying tax dollars for that position. I challenge any reader to show us some evidence that this has occurred and that a real measurable "budget saving" resulted. I think this is all "press release" generated headlines to generate sympathy were none is needed or to drum up votes for the coming ballot proposition(s) in November. Surely when they run the ads in November for the "Local Taxpayer, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act" (which they hope to qualify for the November 2010 statewide ballot) they will run these headlines of "proposed" cuts and tell us how the sky is falling.

L.A. County budget shortfall at more that $500 million, layoffs possible
April 19, 2010 | 2:09 pm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a5267e70970b-800wi

Los Angeles County Chief Executive William T Fujioka said Monday that he is grappling with a $510.5 million budget shortfall and may need to lay off about 100 workers to help close the gap, even with negotiations underway with labor leaders that could yield compromises.

“This will be the worst year,” Fujioka said at a news conference today, predicting that the economic downturn will continue to ease and the pressure on the county will be far less in coming years.

In addition to possible job cuts, Fujioka's proposal to close the budget gap includes shortened library hours, reduced overtime for sheriff’s employees and the elimination of more than 1,000 vacant positions across the county.

Fujioka also cautioned that the cuts might grow significantly worse in the coming weeks because of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $1.5 billion cut to county funding. That situation remains fluid, however, and no state cuts are included in Fujioka’s plan so far.

Currently, his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year totals $22.721 billion, a decrease of $885 million from the current budget. The proposed budget is scheduled to be presented to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday, allowing for public hearings to begin May 12.

Among proposed curtailments:


* Sheriff: $128 million in cuts, elimination of 214 budgeted positions by downsizing the Pitchess Detention Center, deletion of 300 vacant deputy positions, reduction in overtime budget.

* Assessor: $7.9 million reduction and elimination of 22 positions, affecting appraisals, information technology projects and other services.

* Public Health: $7.9 million reduction and elimination of 81 positions

* Public Social Services: $7.4 million and elimination of 383 positions.

* Public Library: $4.8 million reduction and elimination of 9 positions, reducing service hours at selected libraries and elimination of the adult literacy program.

* Public Defender: $4.5 million reduction and elimination of 18 positions.

* Children and Family Services: $4.4 million reduction in programmatic areas.

* District Attorney: $3.6 million reduction and elimination of 25 positions.

-- Garrett Therolf at the L.A. County Hall of Administration

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

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March 7, 2009

Local Unemployment figures for January 2009

These are very interesting numbers and shows the wide disparity of impact of the recession. We need to know what the relative figures were before Dec 2007 when the recession officially started to make any sense out of these numbers. We suspect that the relative disparity in numbers was about the same before the recession.

JOBLESS FIGURES

Unemployment rates as of January 2009

California: 10.1 percent

Los Angeles County: 10.8 percent

Bellflower: 11 percent

Cerritos: 5.9 percent

Compton: 18.4 percent

Cypress: 8 percent

Downey: 8.7 percent

Hawthorne: 14 percent

Lakewood: 7 percent

Long Beach: 11.9 percent

Los Alamitos: 3.8 percent

Los Angeles: 12 percent

Manhattan Beach: 3.8 percent

Norwalk: 11.4 percent

Palos Verdes Estates: 2.2 percent

Paramount: 15.8 percent

Redondo Beach: 5.7 percent

Seal Beach: 5.5 percent

Signal Hill: 8.1 percent

Torrance: 5.4 percent

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

click here to receive LAAG posts by email