Michael Linder

Seven City Council members won’t take voluntary pay cuts as Los Angeles plunges into economic Armageddon. Four thousand job cuts mean drastic reductions in city services. Nine fire department ambulances have been sidelined while public library hours are likely to be slashed. Parks will close. Day care centers are being axed. Homeowners bracing for new chores: trimming city trees and fixing their own damned sidewalks.

But while the city’s 37,000 employees are sweating pay cuts, furloughs and a swarm of pink slips that began flying last week, seven Council members are clinging to their $178,789 yearly salaries even as their staff take days without pay, some facing firings.

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According to the city’s payroll records…
Cut pay? No way.
Bernard Parks. How bad off is LA? City Council’s Budget & Finance Committee chairman knows better than anyone. But when asked about cuts, Parks was mum. “I never speak about my personal salary. It’s a public record and that’s all I can say to you.” The former LAPD chief also collects $22,000 per month in city retirement benefits.

Herb Wesson says “at the appropriate time I will take one,” but he’s vague on dates. “I’m so caught up in other things,” says Wesson, “I’ve just had a death on my staff. I will get to it in a timely fashion.” For the record, Charmette Bonpua, Wesson’s chief of staff, died in mid-February after suffering an aneurysm.

Bill Rosendahl, also a budget committee member, is a firm believer in pay cuts. “Everybody should take a 10% pay cut,” he says, “from the top bureaucrat down to the person making hourly wages. If we all did that across the board, we wouldn’t have to get rid of anybody.” So why not take a cut yourself? “I’ll take the cut if the rest do. I’m not going to take it first. Why should I do that? I mean this is the real world we’re dealing in here.”

Greig Smith, yet another Budget & Finance Committee member hopes that with 4,000 job cuts, cutting city worker pay 10% may be scaled back. “Salary reductions and a major reduction in benefits and pension plans must be discussed,” Smith told me. ”We’ll do what we have to do.” Docking one’s own pay apparently not included.

Richard Alarcon has had a bad year. He’s been the subject of a DA’s probe of whether he’s actually been living in his council district, a felony if not. Then a homeless guy moved into his some-say abandoned district home and pooped in the bathtub. As for pay cuts? “I believe the decisions that need to be made need to be made by those elected,” Alarcon has said. But voluntary cuts by those elected? Hmmm.

Paul Krekorian [Update] “I’ve not made arrangements for a voluntary cut in my salary,” says Council’s newest member but he’ll be cutting his office payroll by 5-10% over the next few months. After our story aired, a spokesman told us the reductions will be through furloughs, not layoffs as earlier reported. Their boss will indeed reduce his own pay we’re now told. Still unclear as to when — and whether through reduction or furlough.

Self-furloughed
Tony Cardenas. [Update] Cardenas’ office tells us city payroll records we obtained are incorrect. While Cardenas did not accept last year’s request for a voluntary pay cut, he has taken six unpaid furlough days — one a month since August. He plans to take another next Friday. But based on an average 22-day work month, it’s a 4.5% reduction for the past six months.

Taking the Hit
Mayor Villaraigosa took a 16% cut in his $223,000 salary early on in the budget crisis. Eight City Council members have followed suit at various times and in varying degrees. For the record…

“The problem is missing leadership from council,” says Roy Stone, President of the Librarians’ Guild Local 2626, Senior Librarian at the Durant Branch Library. He’s less than amused by these findings.

“We asked what we could do to help the city when we saw the budget crisis coming two years ago. Since then, employees have sacrificed varying amounts of furlough days. Many are paying more into retirement. We’re doing shared sacrifice to make the budget work while these Council members are saying, ‘you need to sacrifice more, you need to do more, you’ve got to take it out of your pocket.’

Meantime, Council members continue to tool around town in cars that are provided, gassed and serviced by city crews, and they are excused from having to pay parking tickets. Members are each provided with $100,000 in discretionary funds to spend as they will — walking around money, if you like. Great pensions, great health care, great gig. Especially when others sacrifice to support it.

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4 Responses to...
No shared sacrifice for City Hall Seven

1. uberVU Social Comments wrote on March 17th, 2010 at 10:07 pm

   This post was mentioned on Twitter by SaveTheLibrary via @KABCRadio

   
   
   
2. Suzanne Meuser wrote on March 18th, 2010 at 9:10 am

   Isn’t what fomer Police Chief Bernard Parks doing, called double-dipping? What a selfish so and so. The only reason that selfish bastard is on the City Council is to stick it to the Los Angeles Police Department, who would not take him back as Chief of Police, because of how he screwed up the Department with his lack of leadership skills. Take it from a civilian in the Department. All I have to say about the others is that come election time – everyone of those selfish, greedy jack-asses will be voted out and won’t have a paycheck. Gee, too bad – not!

   
   
   
3. Steve Proffitt wrote on March 18th, 2010 at 7:09 pm

   Michael,

   Thanks for your great reporting on this. We shared some of it on our site. Your listeners might enjoy a little snarky multimedia piece we created about the Council’s compensation.

   http://kcet.org/socal/2010/03/la-city-council-still-livin-large.html

   Keep the faith.

   
   
   
4. No shared sacrifice for City H… | LA City Workers.com - City of LA Blog wrote on May 18th, 2010 at 6:20 pm

   [...] shared sacrifice for City Hall Seven. Cut our Pay sure, Cut their own not a chance. http://linder.com/archives/1387 Twitter Updates cityofla, lacity, [...]

   
   
   

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