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By ELIZABETH MARCELLINO | City News Service
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, October 5 approved additional funding of $ 2.8 billion for initiatives ranging from overhauling the county’s youth justice program to cracking down on illegal cannabis cultivation in the Antelope Valley, signing a final amount of $ 39.3 billion. budget for fiscal year 2021-2022.
That total will be supplemented by an additional $ 975 million in federal stimulus funds in the coming months, according to County CEO Fesia Davenport.
The budget “is a milestone in all of the progress we have made … as we navigate the pandemic and towards a fairer and more equitable future for all of our residents,” the CEO told the board.
Davenport and the board highlighted what they called a transformative change in county spending to support a vision of “Care First, Jails Last”. A total of $ 461.5 million is allocated to a multitude of strategies to support this model.
Yet some community advocates said not enough was being done and complained about a less than transparent process.
Community lawyer Eunisses Hernandez said the CEO should not have as much power to adjust recommendations made by various advisory groups appointed by the board. Hernandez herself has contributed in various ways to the Care First, Jails Last strategies.
“This budget and these additional changes do not reflect an open and transparent process,” Hernandez told the board.
Davenport countered that uncertainties over federal and state funding mean budgeting “is really an iterative process” that is going on in his office about nine months a year.
“If there is a budget request that is not granted… in a phase of the budget, it does not necessarily mean that it cannot happen,” said the CEO. “It might not necessarily be a ‘no’, it might just be a ‘not now’. ‘
Supervisor Holly Mitchell said she was determined to see even more investment in historically disenfranchised communities and in the growth of prison diversion programs. She mentioned a recent visit to the inmate reception center of the Central Men’s Prison.
“We have seen what incarcerated people and county staff face every day,” Mitchell said. “There is no doubt in my mind that we are still in a state of emergency.”
Debate over balancing sheriff and probation service spending and community investment has intensified in recent years, with various officials promoting different visions of public safety. The five county board members were broadly unanimous in favor of most of the Care First strategies, Jails Last, although supervisor Kathryn Barger insisted on the need for sufficient prison beds until that a working infrastructure of community alternatives be established.
A presentation by Davenport to the board of directors showed that the share of the sheriff’s department budget has increased from 63% to 45% over the past 10 years, while the share allocated to treatment and services has increased from 13% at 31%.
The board of directors also lifted the hiring freeze on Tuesday for all departments except the sheriff’s department and probation department positions related to young offenders.
The budget, however, includes a plan to add 28 posts to the probation department, pissing off criminal justice reformers.
Supervisor Sheila Kuehl pointed out that the department has a new compliance burden as it responds to a state council finding that the two county juvenile wards – Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights – not suitable for housing young people. .
Still, Kuehl said newly authorized positions should only be filled if absolutely necessary to fulfill the legal tenure and no one can be reassigned.
“It’s not a blank check,” Kuehl said. “We don’t want the ministry to increase its footprint.
A LASD employee told the board that she and more than 80 other employees in her department have already been denied the promotions they have worked, studied and interviewed for due to the freeze.
“These positions are positions which are not new… they are already budgeted,” said the woman, adding that many other jobs had been cut altogether.
She wasn’t the only county employee trying to get the board to adjust its spending plans.
Several county doctors, whose union is currently in contract negotiations with representatives from the CEO’s office, said the board is turning its back on those hailed as heroes in the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic .
“We have driven across the county several times to the COVID outbreak, but when it comes to renewing our contract to reflect 5% national inflation … we frontline heroes are urged to freeze wages and to renew for six months. Said Dr. Hannah Carr, third-year resident at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and shop steward for Service Employees International Union, Local 721.
Carr and other doctors said the low salaries would hurt the county’s ability to recruit much-needed new doctors.
The county rarely comments on ongoing union negotiations, but Mitchell and supervisor Hilda Solis both said they or their staff have met with union representatives in recent months.
“I can understand that union negotiations can be long and difficult,” Mitchell said, while Solis hoped for a resolution “soon”.
An important element for the board, not surprisingly, is the fight against homelessness. A total of $ 527 million – $ 494 million from the H-measure quarter-cent sales tax – is expected to be spent on a combination of strategies.
“We are committing historic funding levels to tackle homelessness,” Davenport told the board. “These investments will allow us to increase funding for permanent housing solutions, expand our supply of temporary housing, improve the emergency shelter system (and) provide support for protection services to people. homeless elderly. ”
Despite being the largest LA County budget in history, it relies heavily on one-time federal and state funding provided in response to the pandemic. Still, the strength of the county’s financial position is underscored by last week’s decision by the Standard and Poor’s rating agency to shift the outlook for its highest possible AAA bond rating from “stable” to “negative.”
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