Faced with a budget deficit of nearly a billion dollars, the elected officials of Los Angeles return to a proven formula for the difficult financial times of the alteration: invoice more for municipal services.
On Wednesday, two committees of the municipal council – one focused on public works, the other on environmental issues – approved a plan aimed at increasing garbage collection costs in each of the next five years, the first hike being by far the largest.
As part of the plan, waste collection fees would increase for around 740,000 customers in single -family houses, duplexes and buildings with three or four units. These customers put their waste in black, blue and green bins, which are emptied by city workers once a week.
Monthly waste costs for single -family houses and duplexes would increase by 54% during the upcoming budgetary year, reaching $ 55.95, compared to $ 36.32. The monthly costs for small buildings – those with three or four units – are increased to $ 55.95, compared to $ 24.33.
Friday, the proposal for waste costs goes to the full municipal council for a vote. If the plan is approved, the city’s lawyers would write an order establishing higher rates, which would also require the approval of the board.
The votes of the committee on Wednesday came while the city leaders, seeking to erase the massive budget deficit, assess the opportunity to eliminate thousands of city jobs. Mayor Karen Bass should disclose her budget and her plan to fill the financial gap on April 21.
The member of the Council Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the Budget Budget Committee, and the Chairman of the Country Marquece Harris-Dawson recently called municipal policy analysts to find new opportunities to generate income, such as fixing costs at “appropriate levels to achieve cost recovery”.
The managers of the city’s sanitation office said that existing waste costs had not generated enough money to cover the real cost of waste collection. The budget of the general fund, which pays public security and other basic services, made the difference, they said.
If the rates are not increased, the general fund will be forced to absorb more than $ 200 million in these costs during the next budgetary year, which begins on July 1, said sanitation officials.
“This changes the situation when we try to think about the number of jobs (from the city) that we are trying to protect,” said member of the Council Euniss Hernandez, which represents parts of the city’s eststiside, during the meeting of the joint committee on Wednesday.
Yaroslavsky has accepted, saying that invoicing less than the real cost of waste collection is “poor budgeting, especially since we are looking at a billion dollars”.
“It is absolutely necessary that we do this,” she said.
The member of the Council Adrin Nazarian expressed the only opposing vote, saying that he feared that the city officials waited too long to increase the prices. Nazarian proposed that the Council is planning a study to reassess these rates in 2028 – an idea rejected by his colleagues.
The first cycle of rate increases is expected to generate more than $ 200 million over a full calendar year, according to the city’s administrative agent Matt Szabo, city budgetary analyst.
If the rate increases come into force by October 1, the sanitation office will probably generate an additional $ 90 million during the coming fiscal year. If the increases come into force on January 1, they would produce additional $ 49 million, officials said.
As part of the city’s proposal, trash costs would continue to increase until 2029. In the past year, unified houses and apartments with two to four units would be billed $ 65.93 per month for waste collection.
For houses and unified duplexes, this would be an increase of 81% compared to the current year. For apartments with three or four units, the costs would be almost triple. The largest apartments are not covered by the expected waste costs.
The increases would appear on the invoices issued on a bimonthly basis by the Department of Water and Energy, under the line of line “Solid resources costs”.
The sanitation office also seeks to increase the deletion costs of bulky items, such as mattresses or sofas, and plans to increase the number of customers who are charged these costs.
Sanitation officials said their agency needed increases to absorb the increase in equipment costs, higher wages and an expensive organic waste program.
SZABO said that the sanitation office spends tens of millions of dollars in accordance with California Senate Bill 1383, which requires the diversion of organic waste far from discharges.
“The state no longer allows us to throw food in the trash, and it will cost much more money,” he said.
The last time the council increased trash costs was 17 years ago, when Antonio Villaraigosa was mayor. During his first mandate, Villaraigosa managed to triple the invoices of customers over a period of three years.
In 2006, Villaraigosa said the cost increases were needed to cover its plan to hire 1,000 police officers. In 2008, additional funds were also necessary to help the city resist a budgetary crisis launched by the 2008 global recession.
On Wednesday, several members of the council asked to know why the city waited so long to request increases in waste costs. Sarai Bhaga, financial director of the Sanitation Office, told them that a rate increase had been discussed around 2017 and 2018, but “the political winds did not argue it at that time”. Once the cocovio-19 pandemic started, the idea has been delayed again, she said.
Jack Humphreville, who volunteers to defenders of the Budget of the neighborhood council, a surveillance organization, accused the members of the board of passing the proposal for costs without enough time for the public.
The agenda of the meeting of the Wednesday committee was published one day earlier, he said. Only one person testified at the meeting.
“Everything is at the last moment,” said Humphreville. “There was simply no awareness, no transparency, nothing.”
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