Update: April 21, 2010: The Mayor's proposed budget is $41,000 for NCs.
Update: February 23, 2010: For the last several weeks, the City Council and Mayor have been wrestling with the projected June 30th deficit of $200 million. Last week they decided to cut 4,000 jobs from a total of 12,000 and several departments.
Neighborhood Councils will certainly feel the impact of these decisions. The work of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) will be folded into the Community Development Department (CDD).
DONE provided training, support, oversight and financial processing for the 90 neighborhood councils. 16 members of the DONE staff will remain support Neighborhood Councils. View the planned positions. The DONE General Manager, BongHwan Kim will be resigning no later than the end of June. Read BH Kim's resignation letter. DONE staff that have not already found other employment, are currently on pins and needles awaiting their fate.
While some neighborhood council members have called for a reassignment of DONE's work, others are dubious about the benefits. The Daily News reported on the divergent opinions about the dissolution of DONE.
Yet to be decided is the proposed reduction in Neighborhood Council budgets. They were originally set at $50,000. Last year they were reduced to $45,000, a cut that was commensurate with the balance of the City's budget cuts. Some proposals call for cutting each NC's budget to $22,000.
According to a CityWatchLA article the DONE cuts will save the City $2 million.
Update: February 12, 2010. The matter has been sent to the Education and Neighborhoods Committee chaired by Councilman Krekorian. See CitywatchLA for details.
February 1, 2010: At the end of January 2010, Controller Wendy Greuel reported that at the current rate, the city would have a $200 million shortfall at the end of the fiscal year, dated June 2010. The Chief Administrative Officer of Los Angeles made a number of proposals to address this problem, including cutting funding for neighborhood councils and for the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.
A number of NCs joined in a BudgetLA meeting on Saturday, January 30 and issued a letter focusing on the mandate for NCs provided by the city charter. They held a press conference (view NC budget press conference video) at City Hall on Monday, February 1, and then proceeded to speak before the city's Budget & Finance committee in a marathon session. Finally, the proposal regarding NCs was removed from the plan. This is a short term reprieve as the subject is expected to return especially regarding the next fiscal year.
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